THE SLIDING GLASS DOOR
by
r/
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2012
I
I’ve just poured another glass of Bordeaux . . . nothing special . . . a vin ordinaire by
every measure.
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A second glass out of the ordinary for me. One usually the limit.
Drinking ordinary matches feeling ordinary this evening. Feeling ordinary because . . .
well, because that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.
These feelings have the making of a story I’m trying to write in my head, not yet on
paper or on the screen. An adult life that has been far from ordinary is reverting to a state
more closely resembling from whence it came.
Am I unbecoming the person I have been for my adult life? I once unbecame the person
I was growing up. I was determined to remake my world from the ordinariness I was
born and reared in. I like to tell myself that was intentional and relatively speaking
successful. My kin barely understood what I became or what I did. The space that
separated us was virtually unbridgeable. They quit asking, and I quit explaining.
I remade my world once. That’s for sure. Now I’m thinking I should remake it again.
Out of necessity in part. The life I’ve been nurturing for four decades has come to an
end. More than that . . . I want it to come to an end.
The inevitable question . . . what next? I’m struggling with that. I seemed to have had a
clearer sense of how to leave my upbringing than how to leave what became my adult
life.
I’m less sure how to do it this round. Do we get just one shot? Can we remake a second
world or do you just drift around between what we were once and what we’ve been
since? What nags at me, as I enjoy my vin ordinaire, is that I may be seeking a world of
more “ordinariness” than I’ve know for decades. Can that be? Am I reverting, what the
psychiatric community calls in more serious forms as regressing.
Not really. I haven’t resumed talking like a baby yet. In stepping out of the life I’ve
known for so long I may be leaning toward something more ordinary in the sense of less
engaged, more insulated. When I think about such a life, I can’t help reminding myself
that was the life my parents and their relatives and friends preferred because they feared
the real world that surrounded them. I’ve been a part of that real world for so long I
hardly harbor any great fear of it. I’m in that holding area between something ending
and something not yet beginning. Surprisingly, the second glass of vin ordinaire
confirms what is really at work – the future is murky because I haven’t chosen yet what
the future should be.
Where I’m sitting has become my place in my place. I’d bought the condo years ago
partly because of the view allowed me through the sliding glass door in front of me. I
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can watch the city pass through its days and its nights in all kinds of light and weather,
teasing and testing my moods. I own two wingbacks that I inherited from my parents,
chairs that do not permit slouching and that was exactly why I kept them. I like to sit
upright in contrast to my behavior. They have been upholstered twice, the last time,
because I could afford it, in soft leather. The table between the chairs is also a family
heirloom that had to be repaired but was never refinished. The patina reveals its age. It is
not large but of sufficient size for a tray of food and my IPad. I make a deliberate effort
to keep it uncluttered. My time in front of the sliding glass door is meant not for working
but for restoring, daydreaming, exploring, mulling.
I've been officially retired for half a year, but it’s taken months to execute the goddamn
decision. I was anxious to leave but agreed to hang around for a while to help out the
President whom I admired and respected. He was having to make hard choices in a
tumultuous time at the university where I had spent my entire professional life. The
worst for him was now behind him, and I had the green light to sever completely my
ties, with his deep-felt thanks in the form of a private dinner with him and his wife and
several others at the President’s House. A relaxed, jolly evening among friends and
colleagues with whom I had endured many battles. A time to enjoy good wines, to talk
about theater and opera, to needle me about abandoning the good fight. Not a time for
gossiping, back-stabbing or scoring points. That was the provenance of faculty. This
President focused on policies and plans and only on personalities when necessary. That
suited my style. I almost never knew what the local scuttlebutt was, even when I was the
topic of scuttle-butting. We all knew who the faculty clowns were, some of whom were
distinguished scholars but most of whom would never achieve distinguished.
As a farewell gift the president presented me with a framed copy of a poster I had helped
to design for a spoof I had helped to produce. Because our medical students were such a
talented group, a decade ago several faculty members had petitioned me when I was the
Dean, to provide the students with money to put on a mid-year satirical revue to provide
relief from the grid of classrooms and clinics. They could let off steam in a creative way.
It was now an established event, performed before thousands, both from the university
and the public. I ended up lending a hand to the med students in the psychiatric
programs where I still taught when time permitted because I was the only faculty
member who had theatrical experience in my youth. We came up with the idea of a skit
based on Jerome Kern’s Anything Goes, although we retitled it as Anything Goes,
Therapeutically.
It opened with Reno’s song:
Times have changed,
And we've often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock,
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When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today,
Any shock they should try to stem,
'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.
One of our students was trained in music as well as science – not an unusual
combination among med students – and she brought down the house with her rendition
of “Anything Goes”, each subsequent verse satirizing a different therapeutic approach
until she bellowed out “I can’t go on I can’t win/I can’t rewind the clock once
again/From choosin’ I’m hos’d/Anything Goes. As she sang, the students acted out role
of patient and therapist, and at the end false rocks floated down from on high landing on
both patient and therapist.
Everyone knew that the smorgasbord was not in and of itself dangerous, but everyone
also knew that the smorgasbord posed risks. With 40 or 50 methodologies (at last count)
how was an innocent but bewildered patient to know what to choose?
Locally, it was taken as a spoof, but when it was posted on YouTube, it raised a howl.
The poster from the show had superimposed on it the first verse of Reno’s song by Kern
and the last verse by the students plus a condemned X through the YouTube logo at the
bottom. The re-creation was brilliantly done, and the frame enclosing the poster was
resting against the wall to my left.
I had arrived a quarter of a century ago, after completing a residency in psychiatry, with
a wife who was carving out a career in marketing. I’d never expected to abandon
psychiatry, but, the pesky Fates had other plans. I moved into administration, first as
head of the psychiatry section, then dean of the med school and finally as provost of the
university. It was not an unusual route for academics with a talent for administrating. In
my case, however, the difference was that once in the provostship I decided I was not
interested in the next step and would after a period of time take early retirement. That
period of time turned out to be the symbolic seven years. I’m well-off financially, and
even though younger than most retiring academics, I’ve lost interest in the academic
enterprise. It was not that I was retiring to return to my original goal of being a
practicing psychiatrist. I was quitting psychiatry as well as academia. At least, I was
trying to.
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The future? It’s unfolding. That’s the way I want it to be. Let’s see what the Fates can do
this round? Much of the unfolding is occurring where I’m sitting at this very moment.
The life I’d lived was not the life I was meant to live. Nothing in my upbringing
prepared me for the roles I’d assumed. I was not discouraged from pursuing an
education, but I was not encouraged either. My parents and their siblings were
uneducated, had quit school to go to work and lived in very narrow, almost selfcontained worlds. I’ve always suspected that I became an explorer of life because I was
never encouraged to do so as a kid. That sounds like Pop Psychology. It is. I’m not
above using it to explain my own hangups to myself.
That I’m abandoning the life that had befallen me (I like the word befallen), as a young
explorer, to try to encourage a different befalling, as an aging explorer, appeals to me.
I will eventually leave the city in which much of my adult life had transpired. When my
ex and I first moved here, we liked the city and our jobs and decided to buy and renovate
a large brownstone – perhaps faux brownstone is more accurate – where we lived and
entertained until she bolted about two decades ago. She came from a wealthy family and
wasn’t interested (nor was I) in divorce proceedings that argued over assets. She claimed
what was hers and left everything else to me. I came to realize that owning a brownstone
was just continuing a marriage. I sold it and bought this condo in the heart of the city,
not far from the university. I never saw her again, although I did hear from her lawyer
every once in a while. The divorce was not acrimonious in the customary sense, but it
was a time best forgotten. I’ve had ample opportunities to leave the university and the
city, but I like it here and stayed. My leaving is no longer in doubt, however.
It wasn’t the only time I’d been forsaken, but it was, after the initial shock (20+ years
amounted to something) wore off, it was the one I came to care the least about. Other
breakups have come and gone and were of little consequence and easily forgotten as
well. Dissolution of relationships that begin as romances can cause all of us to shed tears
in buckets and to pound (figuratively, I hoped) heads against walls. We can feel as if the
world around us has collapsed. With myself and with others I have seen as patients it
doesn’t seem to matter if we are “in love” for a week or a decade, “in love” with
someone we should never have fallen in love with or “in love” with a mirage, an ideal, a
phantom, we suffer and sometimes like the worlds in our imaginations we collapse.
Of course, a broken romance is only one of life’s many tragedies and is not the worst.
But, broken romances are what we have to live with more often than other
disappointments and despairs. We keep falling in and out of love, as if we’re wired to be
a suitor or a suitee invariably. And, we’re just as miserable when we fall out of love but
decide to stay . . . or fall in love but decide to leave . . . or have no part of being in or out
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of love. The combinations are almost infinite, and few of us escape the shatterings that
romance can entail. Oscar Wild’s pronouncement that the excess and the renunciation of
excess will mean certain punishment. Even the stablest among us can become
disoriented and unpredictable. We become angry, we shout and scream, we wear our
clothes backward, we pace night after night including weekends, we read Dante to see
where the monster of our life should reside. The psychic toll from all these romantic
excitements can be devastating. And, what’s worse than the loss is the inability to
explain or understand the loss.
Sometimes we feel so awful we need couches. Nothing wrong about that. Surprisingly,
though, as often as dissolutions happen to each of us and among all of us, far fewer than
we might expect require couches. Equally surprisingly, however, some dissolutions that
should be easily recoverable from become heavier burdens than ever. It’s unpredictable.
Our psyches are full of tricks.We worry, as we should, about the dissolutions we cannot
handle. They can damage and derange.
Over lo these many years I have been as much fascinated by the first category as the
second. I wanted to know more about how most people resolve these personal crises
without much intervention at all To be sure, some dissolutions are so minor they can
safely be ignored. Others are not so minor and yet we recover. I have no statistics, but if
I had stayed active as a practicing psychiatrist, I might have made it my life’s work to try
to understand what goes on in our brains during these episodes. If nothing else, I’d like
to figure out for myself how I’ve bounded from romance to romance and remained
“sane”, even though certain urges made me feel “out of it”. We may need a shoulder to
lean on or a hand to hold onto, someone with whom to share our burdens in order to
push ahead, or at most a few weeks with a therapist, a minister, a counselor or a friend,
but not much more. In a curious way we count upon ourselves to recover, as fearful, as
disoriented, as wobbly as we may feel. “Therapy” means a treatment designed to cure or
heal, and what we professionals do not always recognize is that there are personal
therapies that accomplish what clinical therapies are designed to do. No doubt it’s
always been that way. Long before there were trained therapists, there were other
avenues by which people sought relief when their own inner selves failed. They asked
oracles, they created myths, they consulted priests or elders to try to explain in order to
alleviate. That’s still what therapy – personal or clinical – is about – alleviating and
curing, if possible. Some of us are better at the personal than others, and I’d still like to
know why.
It’s become a more complicated business now than before, when lives were short, tasks
strenuous, expectations limited. If the ancients had written their own DSM, its entries
would have comprised a few pages. In modern times, however, longevity and leisure has
changed our lives in ways we had not anticipated. I remember once listening to a panel
discuss the extent to which we were hardwired for a physical world that no longer
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existed, and while the wiring would change over time the residue of the wiring from
millennia ago remained. I had to wonder how many of the maladies identified in DSMIV of over a 1,000 pages, three times more than DSM-I, arose from .wiring out of whack
with our contemporary lives and contemporary lives out of whack with our brain. And,
of course, the ultimate question . . . how much of the discontent that we created in our
lives was of our own doing irrespective of the circuits, neurons, chemistry and psyche? I
wasn’t sure I had the right questions that with time had become more speculative and
metaphysical and less scientific, but somewhere deep inside my own churning neural
network I was becoming more dubious that, as we got closer to the explanation, we
would find ways to behave that required more explanations, not fewer.
I’d reached a stage in my life where I was more the contrarian than I’d ever been. Out of
step not only with my profession but also with humanity itself. I don’t stress out over
this because I bear responsibility for who I am. I enjoy poking around in all sorts of
black holes and dead ends just to see what I can come up with. Since I’ve quit
practicing, I’m free to explore the hard sciences as well as the lunatic fringes without the
fear of contaminating any clients with the unproven and the humbug. I have remained
faithful to the basic proposition, arrived at years ago, that since time and immemorial
humans must have explanations, even if the explanations they came up with were
cookoo. Even among the most rational, however, living with the unknown that may
eventually become the known was unsettling. As much as I wanted to – my ego never
lacked for ambition – I could not with the wave of my hand make the cookoo disappear.
I had to learned to live with it, work around it, feign understanding and practice
patience.
Smiling at the sliding glass door, I can now become the fully-fledged contrarian I
wanted to be. My few closest friends only laugh when I use that term. They would
rightly point to some real contrarians whose behavior and mine were light-years apart.
With people I care about, my contrarianism was mute. I was known as a good and acute
listener – my enemies learned quickly I may disagree but I listened and, more
importantly, remembered – and for being generous with my time and thoughtful with my
advice. What I look forward to, however, is abandoning whatever profession self I’ve
had to portray and learning more about the inner self that needed light and air.
In my practice I had come to rely more on medicine than talk, even though I had been
trained in talk. When I was dean, I encouraged the faculty to pursue research that tilted
more toward brain chemistry than cognitive models. I’m fully aware of the limits and
dangers in using drugs, but I’ve also argued that without research we’d just go on, acting
in the dark. I reminded my colleagues, talk is full of risk and unproven protocols.
At the same time, I’ve kept my distance from the pharmaceutical companies. I made no
endorsement, I took no money and I offered no advice. I wanted rules like that for all the
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faculty, but I was overruled more than once. I gave up, although I enforced the
university’s consulting regulations to the letter. Money’s more powerful than the dean or
provost.
I’ve learned that the scholarly mind’s an impatient mind. We’re certainly wired for
curiosity, and that’s a good thing for science and life, but when our curiosity reaches a
cul-de-sac, we can’t always stop and that’s when we start making stuff up, often trying
to sound as rational as possible. The irony is that, as we tear down the wall of ignorance
and expanded the pool of knowledge, we seemingly become less patient, not more. It
seems to be harder for a more informed humankind to live with the unknown and
perhaps the unknowable than before. Despite how much we’ve learned, we’re still
standing on mountain tops waiting for a secular or a religious rapture. A bit of
information is bad for us, but a lot of information is apparently capable of driving us
crazy.
I’d grown up in a much more secularized world. Religion was important, especially in
our small town of 2,000 residents and a dozen churches. It was mainly a Sunday affair
except for an occasional midweek church dinner. People did not wear their beliefs on
their sleeves, so to speak. One seldom heard any mention of God or Church at the
grocery store, in the barber shop or beauty salon or in the school cafeteria. There were
only Protestants and Catholics, the former outnumbering the latter. Ministers were more
interested in building additions and holding events than discussing the Bible. I thought
of myself as religious . . . Protestant Christian . . . but preferred talking about athletics,
telling dirty jokes or jacking off.
In my adult life “secularized” became a nasty word. Religion took on aspects of
craziness. Being godly to the extreme – morning, noon and night – not to make this life
better but to dismiss it in preparation for the next life, whatever that is. Finding Jesus in
almond cookies, another manifestation of religious resurgence. Especially when we
haven’t a clue what he looked like or if the Jesus we reconstruct ever existed.
Accompanying the resurgence had been a rise in bigotry, racism, hate. In a world,
increasingly pluralistic, the religious resurgence intended to narrow choices, to condemn
alternatives, prepare for raptures for the select few.
---“What dangerous stupidity,” I was known to repeat when others urged caution.
---“There was nothing cautious in the messages of these fools,” I would respond.
I was told time and again that people needed to develop and show a “moral fiber” and
“personal responsibility” to deal with the world they found. I would ask what the hell
did that mean, and I heard more nonsense. I was told innumerable times to my face that
my relativistic outlook was doomed. People wanted less pablum and more backbone.
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They were tired of this or that, maybe and perhaps, more questions than answers. The
truth was there to be found, and, once found, God would clear the path and trample
down evil. In the humanities and the sciences, ex cathedra had become the new mantra.
My rejection of religion especially in psychotherapy arises from my general rejection of
the idea that replacing a complicated personal structure with another complicated
structures had no benefit. If a person’s having trouble working through a set of
complicated issues, how is adding another layer of complications going to help. Religion
poses more questions than it can ever answer, and after millennia of trying to explain the
unknown the scaffolding required to maintain religious belief can barely sustain itself.
Religious teachers and scholars might know this, but, as the late German theologian,
Paul Tillich had argued, “Trust and Have Courage.” Does that make matters better?
Hardly. Even those religions that taught us to withdraw, meditate, renounce to the point
of submersion in subconscious states was rigged against living in the world in which we
found ourselves. That had always been the bottom line. How I’d love to escape all the
shit of our planet, but I saw no earthly value . . . not to mention any heavenly value . . .
in prayer, meditation, waiting, waiting waiting . . . .
I once had a young patient whose mother after several disastrous marriages had
converted and began to “Praise the Lord” daily if not hourly. Her teenage daughter went
through several conversions, each subsequent conversion presumably deeper than the
previous one, and when I saw her, the deepening of these conversions had left her on the
edge of despair. She’d been told to pray more earnestly, to meditate more devoutly, to
read more spiritually, and on and on went the instructions.
Converting had not stopped the questions nor suppressed the doubts. It’s often the case
with religious anxiety that the anguished blame themselves for having questions or
doubts with the help of those who hold dominion over them. Never question or doubt
that what they trying to do should be questioned or doubted. Her questions or doubts
were perfectly understandable, but within her religious context they could only be dealt
with by convincing her not to have them.
---“Why am I so incomplete in God’s eyes?”
---“Why can’t I feel fully His love?”
---“Why do the books I read about the Bible make it sound so easy when it isn”t?”
---“If I’m loving God, why am I feeling so anxious, so unprepared?”
She had ended up with me without knowing what my religious stance was. The doctor
she had been assigned to had been called away for several weeks to deal with family
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matters, and I, being the “drug” psychiatrist, was asked to examine her to see if a
temporary medicinal relief was possible, until the doctor whose specialty was treating
such anxieties returned.
I had no trouble observing the anguish. It was in her eyes, in her voice, in her
movements. She was a lovely young lady, petite with a warm smile and a differential
manner, who had chosen missionary training over college. In delivering herself to Jesus
she had abandoned the mind to nurture the soul. What she was discovering was that the
mind was more real than the soul.
I prescribed a sedative. Without taking up the root cause, I explained this was temporary
until she could talk to the doctor who specialized in the form of anguish she was feeling
and I described in detail what she could expect from the drug over the next several
weeks. I also called in one of our social workers to arrange for daily contacts.
I was surprised how amenable she was to these arrangements. Had the anguish reached a
point where she wanted relief? We shook hands, and I assured her I and the entire staff
were available upon call to see her. A month later she was back under the care of the
specialist. I moved onto other assignments and never learned what fate awaited her.
In my own practice years ago I had observed more stress among the devout than among
the less devout. Now, some current research, has suggested some religious practices
raised stress levels significantly above those of the less religious. How can they not? The
constant pounding that you needed to do this and to avoid that, to let go of the world you
could see, feel, engage for some world that was either imaginary or transitory. The
anticipation can quite simply drive people crazy. Of course, the very religious say it is so
simple . . . believe, have faith, cast out the demons . . . and yet all these actions require a
level of reasoning – even abandoning reasoning requires reasoning – that can only
deepen the dismay that troubled minds already feel.
Our brains are structured to work in certain ways and our lives become structured
accordingly. We’re at the frontier of breaking apart how our brain and our behavior are
interlocked. We need to be prepared to modify our strategies. Freud was right, of course,
that out lives were history and without understanding the history we will fail to
understand ourselves. All therapy spent time reconstructing history. But, Freud also
recognized how hard it was and how long it took to do that. We get impatient, we chose
shortcuts, we ignore warnings. And, can we ever be sure of the history that had been
reconstructed? What we don’t know about a person’s history is how it originated. I’ve
been around long enough to observe that many serious-minded therapists and
psychiatrists take great care in reconstructing that history and deciding what is useless
and true and what is not. Nonetheless, it is based upon recollection. Can we ever be sure
about recollections. The research on memory now reveals that on a structural level many
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different regions, more than we had long suspected, are involved. On a cellular level
neurons can swell up as our memories climb in number or can show increasing
complexity. This opens the way to the possibility of miscues and errors that can affect
how and what we can ever recall. Thus, this magnificent machine, the brain, can be
remarkable and problematic at the same time.
Tens of million are in therapy. Millions of others, certain surveys reveal, should seek
help. Excluding the deeply-ill, who surely deserved to be taken care of, are our lives so
shattering, our brains so miswired that half the population needs therapy? Life never
matches up with expectations. Nor do therapies ever match up with expectations. We
therapists learn more, practice better, sound smarter, but the worlds created by our
patients outwit us all the time. The neural network will slowly reveal its secrets only to
hide more secrets. I can be as idealistic as others, that we can promote good mental
health, but I can also be hard-nosed that personal therapies may come into play more
effectively than clinical protocols.
My hands were not entirely clean, either. As dean of the med school and then provost of
the university I had approved of the establishment and the development of special
programs and institutes that in effect extended access to therapy for thousands. I could
have stopped the expansion on the grounds of need, effectiveness, cost, etc., but I didn’t.
I tried to make sure the plans were sound, but I was sure everyone in the
psychiatric/therapeutic business would make the same affirmation. No, I contributed to
the rising tide of “Anything Goes”.
For myself, I’ve devised my own strategy that I call MULLING IT OVER. That’s what I
do in the quiet of the space I now occupy, in front of the sliding glass door. I ponder,
excogitate, yes, even vegetate. It’s a form of personal therapy. I suspect I have lots of
fellow-mullers. It’s how we get through life. My day, my life, good times, bad times,
success, failure, cloud nines, black holes and, above all, lovers, notably and regrettably
lovers lost.
Living leaves its marks, as hard as some try to ignore that fact, and what we do with
living, how we behave and remember, is what baffles us. Freud, Jung and others had
proposed many explanations, and now neuroscience is weighing in. It is doubtful in my
mind, although not in everyone’s, that much of what we’ve established about the psyche
will not survive the scrutiny of neuroscience. I have no idea what will become of the
subconscious, the libido, the psyche itself. What I’m certain will remain, perhaps take on
new forms, is how we imagine living: the living we’ve known, the living we are
experiencing and the living we try to anticipate. We’ll keep telling stories, real and
fictional, about ourselves. Sometimes our storytelling is dangerous to our wellbeing, but,
in most cases, I like to think, it’s manageable. In fact, I like to think that we need it. It’s a
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vehicle by which we try to find some balance or perspective or refuge in a world that
keeps us tittering.
I can feel a smile crossing my lips. Alas, these excursions of mine have become the
staples that entertain, comfort and enlighten. Am I suffering delusion or dissonance or
one of a dozen other maladies? I’ll leave it at that for tonight. I’ve had my moments of
mental and emotional wreckage. This doesn’t feel like wreckage. Some wreckage I
never want to think about again. I know it’s hanging around, but it’s pretty much
disarmed. Not sure I can explain how that happened nor can I explain to anyone else
how it happened. Other wreckage emerged in a more positive and beneficent form that I
keep calling up, reassembling and reinterpreting, again defying explanation. Did certain
neural connections get banged up and yet recovered without longstanding damage? Am I
lucky that certain links missing in brains of others have survived the onslaught of living
we all experience? In the end, after years of arguing, debating, treating, planning
executing in the name of good mental health I’m inclined to conclude that we
professional do good things for some, but the majority probably don’t need us or only
need us ever so briefly.
While images of the city, memories of the past and pleasures of the wine dance in my
head I hear the familiar beeps on my cell and simultaneously on my computer that a
message had arrived. I’m as digitized and digitally connected as one can be, and move
almost seamlessly back and forth between computer and cell. When I open the alert,
much to my surprise, I discover an email from a pal of thirty or forty years ago. We had
known each other at the university where I took my medical degree and he completed a
doctorate in psychology. His email said he and his partner had recently moved here, and
he had run across the announcement of my retirement. He was quite certain I was the
person he knew, and he wanted to know if I wanted to meet for lunch. I send back a note
immediately with a phone number, and after no more than a few seconds the cell rings.
He is headed out, so the conversation would have to be short, and after ticking off a few
scheduling difficulties we find a date.II
Several days later we met at a local vegetarian restaurant – for him rather than me – and
had a three-hour lunch. He had a very limited practice here, mainly dealing with crises,
short-term rather than long-term intervention. He had stayed in the city where we had
met and earned our degrees and had developed a thriving practice. He had retired as had
his partner, a medical doctor, and they had decided to move here because his partner had
developed a serious medical condition best treated at our medical center.
In the presence of more guacamole, chips, quesadillas, salad and cokes than I had eaten
in decades, we made a start on catching up. He had lost most of his hair, I hadn’t; I had
shaved my beard, he hadn’t. Otherwise, we'd both managed the years fairly well. Neither
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of us was overweight – no paunch – although I was stockier because I had been lifting
weights for most of the years since I had last seen him. As old guys will do, we checked
out our respective medical records with no serious impairments to report.
Once the comparative medical profiles were out of the way, we started in on
relationships, exes . . . stuff like that. When we knew each other decades ago, we were
both married. I thought his Carrie was one of the most beautiful women I had ever met –
tall and lean, possessed of an engaging personality and a wicked wit. I was sure I never
told Jay that, but today I ’fessed up. I didn’t really know what he thought of Kate, and
after all the intervening years, frankly, I didn’t ask because I didn’t care. Carrie left Jay
once he came out, but according to him they remained on good terms. Good terms I’d
found over the years and after many sessions had lots of meanings. She had remarried –
how sad, as I put on my longest face – and now lived somewhere in western
Massachusetts.
The next question, I knew, would be asked sooner or later, since Jay had not been
without a relationship, he’d told me, for more than a few months since his divorce. I
wasn’t surprised because in one of those private conversations Carrie and I used to have,
before she became aware of his gayness, he was a man who thrived on relationships, to
the point where she felt excluded and burdened. I had always wondered if under
different circumstances Carrie and I might have hooked up. I’d never thought she was
unhappy – unhappy enough to leave – but I’d certainly weighed the possibility that she
was less than satisfied. I had learned about his coming out years ago, and I’d also
wondered if she had inklings. I certainly hadn’t. If I’d depended on hunches or gambles
in my practice or life, I’d be flipping hamburgers.
---“How did you deal with it after all the years of marriage?” Jay asked with the proper
modulation that therapists can invoke. His earlier practice had to do with couples
therapy before he focused on gay couples.
---“Good question because I have to be reminded. Jay, it’s been nearly twenty years
since my divorce and I last saw her. I went through a brief hellish period, but having
several colleagues who were pretty good therapists I had little trouble staying on track. I
hate to admit this as a professional – I knew it was coming, but I didn’t prepare. Her lack
of interest in me and my life grew daily, although I did not know – embarrassingly
because friends knew – about the extent of her infidelities. You know the routine – grief,
denial, anger, etc – but I’m sure I missed a few steps.”
For the first time during the luncheon Jay laughed at the last comment. Still, so deadly
serious about the toil and turmoil of our lives.
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
---“We did see a couples’ therapist – someone neither of us knew – but I – and I
emphasize I – lasted two sessions. When I was asked to explain why at parties I
frequently left Kate with men she eventually fucked, I answered it was late and I was
tired. I went home. That comment inspired the therapist to proclaim brilliantly: ‘that was
your mistake!’ I walked out. She knew who I was, and that was a disadvantage. As I
walked home that day, I realized I didn’t care about a marriage any longer. I was tired of
his flittings, her family and especially her old man, the functioning dysfunctional
alcoholic and all bullshit about making money, spending money and talking money.
---“It was a matter of weeks before papers were filed and the business was done with. I
wanted out, and she obviously didn’t want in. I told her she could have whatever she
wanted because I had enough money to do what I wanted. She said she was leaving
town, wanted very little and had her own money, thank you. Of course, she had a trust
fund. The papers were signed, she left town, I moved into a condo where I've been ever
since. I'm not much of a psychiatrist anymore, but I can sing the praises of a good
Bordeaux, distinguish good theater from bad, write solid prose, sometimes inspiring too,
and relax with totally unfamiliar table guests. In other words I've done OK. I don’t adapt
easily to muck or mucking about. I'm not sure I handled everything properly or
appropriately, but who has an answer to that question.”
I remembered enough about the Jay of old that he would not be satisfied with my brief
summary – to cavalier, too unrepentant, too pat. What I said was generally true. I
skipped a few episodes that I can only recall in the foggiest way and have no desire or
need to try to dig out of the haze. Wreckage to be left as wreckage.
---“You make it sound so easy, as if we’re wired to marry, divorce and fret not at all.”
Now, it was my turn to laugh.
---“Jay, you know as well as I do that I had to fret for a while, perhaps worse than
fretting, but I pushed it around until I got it positioned the way I wanted it and left it
there. That I am a psychiatrist was an advantage, but, beyond that, lots of people have
shitty marriages or, even worse, shitty lives from which they eventually extract
themselves without much permanent damage. If you want a more operatic libretto, well,
sorry to disappoint. Within months I was working vigorously and perhaps more
imaginatively than before.”
What I was not about to tell Jay was that the messiness of post-divorce relationships hit
me harder in the gut than my divorce from Kate. I was not in the mood to make that trek.
I knew the question was coming, though, to explain post-divorce. I would do so with
few details and be on my way home soon. It took a bit longer than I expected.
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---“But you've never married . . . why?” continued Jay, old friend and apparently newlyassigned therapist all wrapped up in one body. More serious with years was how I was
seeing Jay. Exemplary gravitas.
---“How about not interested? I'm less sure then ever why we get married. I suppose it
gives society a little stability, but think about how much shit it creates for the parties. I'm
not sure how to judge the trade-off. I'm quite content to let people decide on their own, I
have long refused to see clients with marital problems, and I’ll probably leave this life as
single as I am now. Have you got your defense ready?
---“Not against you. On the surface, you seem to be thriving . . . .”
---“But you have doubts, no? I should let you try your magic on me . . . maybe I’d find
out that I've been fooling myself for years . . . a possibility, no?”
---“I can’t imagine anyone would be foolish enough to try to analyze you, although I
remember you took the analytical route for several years.”
---“I did, and frankly I liked it. Of course, it may be different when it's more of a
learning than an unburdening experience. At some point I began to think that talk didn’t
measure up in many cases. That how I became interested in the pharmacological
approach. You've remained faithful to the tradition that first attracted me, but I haven’t.
Worse than that, I was so deep into academic administration that my contact with
treatment was minimal.”
---“Occasionally I heard reports about your efforts to build a top-ranked school here.
You were generally given high marks – you certainly made some notables hires – and,
according to the grapevine not someone to toy with?”
I had to laugh aloud.
---“The only grapevines I worry about are in Bordeaux. You’re right, though. I can be an
asshole. I’m not sure I come by it naturally – like so many of my colleagues – but I
learned how . . . with a smile I might add.
---“Administration is humorless cruelty. It was fairly easy to restart the psychiatry
program, my first assignment, because half the faculty was ready to retire or leave.
You’re right, the new hires gave us a bounce, which, I might add, moved us away from
absolute dependence on talk therapy and into the broader field of brain and drug
research. When I became dean of the medical school I was given a set of goals that the
school should achieve in five years. That was a harder job because half of the faculty
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
was not in exit. That’s where I learned to be an asshole. I presented, I listened, I decided,
and five-years later my reward was the university provostship.
---“I was not a big fan of five-year plans, but to be perfectly frank I was not
fundamentally in disagreement with the goals. They could have been three years, five
years, or no years and still have been attainable. They were not very complicated. Quite
frankly, for all their smarts, doctors have a hard time living outside their clinics or labs
where they’re in total control. I learned trickery, duplicity, humbugery in order to get my
way. Academic democracy doesn’t really work. You need dictators. It helps if they’re
enlightened. Whether or not I was enlightened – time will judge – I got done what I was
asked to do in each of these assignments.”
---“And with your professional legacy in place it's now time to think about yourself?”
Jay’s question surprised me.
---“You’re right. I’m young to retire but old to fall in love. There must be a life beyond
writing memos, upbraiding recalcitrance and sleeping alone.”
Jay grin was manifest.
---“You and I both know a lot about the theory and practice of reorienting our lives,
don’t we? You may have a clearer view of what’s ahead than ordinary folks who don’t
have to deal with such things daily. My guess is you’re thinking harder about the
reorienting than you are actually doing any reorienting. Am I right?”
---“You are. First, on a practical level, it’s been hard to withdraw rapidly and cleanly
from what I’ve been doing for so long and what I’m known for. I’m finally at the end of
my university life except for packing and moving the last of the boxes. And second,” I
paused, as I looked across the table at Jay intensely-focused eyes . . . .
---“Second,” I said almost fiercely, “I have some personal sorting out to do.” I stopped
there because I knew that was enough to launch a question or two, which I was fully
certain I would not honestly answer.
---“Are you afraid of the hole left in your day, your world, your life without the sterling
career you’ve had?”
---“That question I can answer,” I replied quickly and firmly but with a grin. “But, that’s
not the question you really want to ask, is it?”
Jay grinned too and reached across the table to pat my arm before saying,
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
---“No, that question was too indirect, the scourge of therapists.”
---“Let me answer the question you meant to ask. I expect – note, not plan – to leave
these environs, surround myself with people who have absolutely no interest in
psychiatry, therapy, academe or status, smoke pot, drink champagne, perhaps jointly, and
make love to every woman whose shadow crosses my path. I think I deserve that. How’s
that?”
---“Delusional.”
---“I deserve that too!”
---“I can’t believe that in the last 20 years you haven’t meet a single woman – I’m
assuming you’re absolutely gayless – you would want to make permanent or at the very
least long-term in your life.”
---“Do you think my solitude is a put-on. Deep, down, I’m . . . .”
---“No, I don’t. You are content with your solitude, but I wonder, if, for whatever reason,
you’ve made solitude your modus operandi as much out of failure as by choice, as
rational as the choice may be.”
---“Wow,” I say to myself while not losing contact with Jay’s eyes. “He’s as sharp as
ever. But this conversation has to come to an end. Maybe later we’ll talk failure, rational
and delusion.”
---“To put your suspicions to rest . . . yes, I’ve known failure romantically speaking, and
that has certainly influenced how I’ve charted my personal life, but, Jay, you above all
know the torture of choosing even when the choice seems perfectly clear, rational and
desirable.”
---“I do.”
I could see Jay nodding and waiting. I knew I was going to shift this conversation, and I
suspected Jay knew where I was going to shift it.
---“You’re a gay man who once loved a woman. For all I know, you've not stopped
loving women. Should I ask?”
There was one of those poignant pauses everyone can identify with. Jay looked down for
several seconds, then raised his head to say slowly:
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
---“Not recently. Early on, yes, I was bisexual. I think I quit because it didn’t work – sort
like married folks having lovers – they’re both hard to pull off.”
---“You know, Jay, I came from small town. My parents were hardly worldly. Actually,
the opposite – unworldly. So, as I entered that big world, I had a lot to learn. One of my
first friends in college was bisexual when sexuality was not discussed. Kinsey's Reports
had been published, but to confess to homosexuality or bisexuality could mean big
trouble.”
---“Indeed, I remember from our earlier years together the arrest and treatment of your
homosexual friend who was entrapped at a bar in the university town where he lived and
worked. And, of course, I've treated many older gays who spent half their lives at least
under cover. So, your first bisexual friendship?”
---“Big, handsome guy who dated both men and women. He wanted to date me, but after
I’d learned something about his gay life and about homosexuality and bisexuality in
general – remember, I was totally ignorant – I was quite firm that I was not gay. Even if
I had some fantasy or dream about being bisexual that I don’t remember, I knew almost
intuitively I was not gay. Not a cell. But, because I have a circle of friends who are gay I
have been able to observe ‘coupling' among gays as well as straights. In brief, Jay, gay
coupling is no more a certainty than straight coupling. It makes me wonder even more
whether in this day and age coupling is worth it.
---“My prediction, which I know you’re anxiously waiting for, my prediction – marriage
is in permanent decline because we humans have more lust than we can manage. The
contemporary world, which I, like you, relish, feeds our libidos daily and constantly,
something Freud could never have known or anticipated. I could not stay at home and
live the life of my parents. Dare I say, instinctively I knew that. Not all kids do – we
never can predict – but you and I have heard more tales of woes based on staying or
leaving when they shouldn’t . . . all the entanglements that causes . . . and frankly, Jay, I
see only acceleration in those entanglements. Hence, my verdict. Marriage as such
doomed.”
I paused for a moment. I needed to push this toward a conclusion. We’d gone far enough
today. We’ll have more time to pursue these topics.
---“Why did you ask me about bisexuality?”
---“Think about it for a moment. I have no statistics. I have no idea how much
bisexuality there was a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago. We have studies on
the history of the institution of marriage, but many aspects of coupling remain shrouded
in mystery. The reason I asked you about bisexuality is that in my circle of gay friends
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
many are bisexual – they have partners but they like going to bed with the opposite sex
once in a while. I know the rant. If sanctity of marriage were maintained, all this other
evil stuff would go away. A bisexual life, although not for me, may be as animating for
straights as gays. Is that cheating? In short, Jay, the concept of fidelity worked for a
while. A noble and useful idea, but it has a less bright future. It has screwed up people in
the past, and I’m thinking it will screw them up even more in the future. With that
dismal assessment of humankind, I still like women, although I’ve been unattached for
many months, by choice I say to myself . . . the liar that I am . . . and I don’t cotton to
matrimony. This is my treat.” I grab the bill before Jay can and wave to the waiter who
is standing a few yards from the table. I pay in cash, a custom I’m well known for.
We had been at for three hours, and it was time to call it quits, even though I knew Jay
had another four or five hours of questions. And, I hadn’t learned much about his life
since our time in grad school at this luncheon.
---“I also have some appointments to keep. I’ll escape your withering questions about
my life this time,” Jay said, as if he were reading my mind.
---“I may play scarce from here on out,” Jay added wryly.
We embraced at the door and promised to meet again, a promise that may or may not be
kept. Jay’s story may remain out of reach, even though I can construct a modest version
based on what we said to each other.
I am sitting in my favorite café, scribbling in my journal what had just transpired
between me and Jay, checking the moorings in my life, my world, making sure I’m not
drifting, anchorless, in some dark sea.III
I finish my express and on this pleasant sunny but breezy afternoon, I begin the walk to
my condo, I’m glad Jay and I had our conversation. I’d feared some discomfort after so
many years, but that proved baseless. I’m glad we talked. I learned a little about him, but
in an odd way his questioning helped to snap together a narrative that’s been brewing
about where I’ve reached and where I might go. Conversations can do that,
unexpectedly. I’ve been so preoccupied with checking off a few more items on my
mental list, since I almost never kept a penciled list, I’d neglected to remember where
the focus should be during this final countdown. I was not going to be Psychiatrist, PhD,
MD, plus other honorifics, but what was I going to be? I knew the answer to that with a
little more certainty than before I talked to Jay.
I’m waiting for the light and looking at my condo almost straight ahead, and what I’m
thinking is that at heart we psychiatrists want storytelling. We want our patients to
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
conjure up their memories from which we try to weave a memoir. The hope is we’ll find
something revelatory in the act of telling the story. What exactly are we resurrecting?
Reconstructing? It can be so messy and incomplete. Individuals do this all the time with
or without their trusty therapist. I remember reading in one of Javier Marías's novels –
from the trilogy, I think – the worse part of dying was not being able to do what we all
want to do all the time . . . talk. It possible that in the afterlife until the final judgment is
rendered we are incapable of talking, forbidden from talking. All we can do is stand
around and wait.
Every therapist knows firsthand patients who feigned shyness about talking until the
second or third session when when they couldn't be shut up. The stories of our lives, for
most of us, is what we have, for some all we have. In our head the narratives are
continuing and unending. A narrative emerges and is tucked away, perhaps definitively,
we say to ourselves. But, then, that narrative is recalled, revamped and restored. How
many times do these narratives get revised? How different are they after the second,
third, fourth . . . retelling? Does the first telling or subsequent retelling ever get close to
the actual truth? In retelling my own stories, I am at times aware of changing the
dynamics, emphasizing what was de-emphasized before or inserting my own new twist,
but I do it anyway. The same thing happened to the stories told from my various
professional couches. An episode, sometimes deeply disturbing, sometimes amusing
casual, is retold with differences. The brain is a magnificent machine, but it has some
limits. A conundrum for psychoanalysis but no longer for me. Some reasons I cannot pin
down, I’m going to let myself retell these stories as often as I want or need to. I will try
to stick to some basic truth, as I understood it, accepting, however, truth is malleable.
Story-telling, which I’d thought about before and even jotted down some ideas, now
took on a new meaning for me, not to try to unravel a patient’s nexus of conflict but to
let the story speak for myself.
As I enter the double doors of the lobby, I’m smiling because, as animated as I feel, I
damn well have to remember that I’ve never tried to tell stories the way I want to tell
them in my new post-couch life. I think that’s called “writing”, and I’ve spent my life
not writing but reporting. I wave to the concierge behind the security window, enter the
elevator and drop my bag to the floor for the seven flights up.
As I sipped my Bordeaux in front of the sliding glass door, reflecting on a day that
surprisingly added some focus to my life, now in transition, I’m feeling genuine
excitement at the prospect that endings can have beginnings. In the darkness I begin to
feel a tiredness that strikes me as more mental than physical.
The next morning my cell starts flashing and jumping before I’m awake. The caller's
number flashed on the screen, and I hit answer.
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---“Hey Dell.” That was actually his last name. He never went by his first name, Emery.
Emery Bassom Dell.
---“I hope I woke you,” he hummed into the phone.
---“Yes, you did. Something must be up or you wouldn’t be wasting your billable time
calling me.”
---“You’re right, something's up but not about you, thank goodness. I have no more
patience for your shenanigans. It is serious, though. Blister's in trouble, real trouble this
time. I’m leaving tomorrow for the South to meet with him. He's in jail. How's your
calendar? Wide open, I assume, since you’re no longer gainfully employed?
“In all seriousness, you are probably the only person I know who could help me and us
through this. I understand the legal issues, but I can’t explain to myself or anyone else
why a guy with a trust fund decided to commit the stupidest of felonies. And, if you
think I'm puzzled and somewhat angry, you should see the Patriarch. He said 'Get
psycho, he knows these things.' An appellation he gave you how many years ago?”
---“I can’t remember – the only person I've ever known who called me to my face what
some people called me behind my back. Not what I expected to wake up to. He's really
in jail and has been charged? We've been on several rescue missions together, but this
sounds pretty dreadful.”
---“You’re right. Different and dangerous. All expenses paid, although you already knew
that. First-class flight out tomorrow morning.”
---“Jeez, a bit unnerving. I haven’t seen him in years, but I thought he was clean and
sober and doing good by helping people make money. Helping himself instead?”
---“You got it. Stock fraud. SEC moved in last night in tandem with the FBI. It's
interstate and from what Beth, his new squeeze, said, it's big. She had no idea, and she's
not been charged and is not under investigation. They know that because they have
wiretaps. She's got her bags packed and heading back to the West Coast as soon as
interviews with the Feds today are finished. The purpose of the trip is to try to secure
bail. I haven’t talked to him nor has anyone in the family, although the Patriarch has
been trying to use his connections. Blister has a local attorney, whom the Patriarch has
already decided is incompetent. I've talked to him, and he's definitely not incompetent,
but he's rather blasé about the case because he doubts he'll be retained. More than likely,
I’ll get a chance to talk to Blister, but I'm not sure you will. I’d like to arrange it; not
sure I can. Blister is definitely considered a flight risk. That's a thumbnail sketch.”
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
---“OK, if it will calm down the Patriarch, I’ll join you. You know I can’t work any
miracles. I’ll can catch a train this afternoon and meet you in Manhattan for supper. Or
would you prefer I meet you at the airport tomorrow?”
---“No, no, no . . . come into the city tonight. I have to be in court late this afternoon.
The spare bedroom is yours. Marge is on the road this week so we can drink a lot of
booze and tell lots of dirty jokes.”
---“Unlikely since we're both down to one glass and one joke. OK, I’ll be at your place
tonight, probably about 19:30. How long will we be on the road?”
---“Twenty-four to thirty-six hours. You should be back in your nest on Friday, no later
than Saturday unless you want to do the weekend with us?”
---“Possibility. I’ll see you tonight.”
We click off our cells. I am still lying in bed. Now, after raking through part of my past
with Jay, I have to think of another past, aka Blister. He and I go back many years. His
ex was my ex's twin. She dumped him after mine dumped me. A twin's conspiracy was
the joke except the circumstances were different.
Dell married Blister's sister, Marge, a high-powered woman with all the credentials
needed in contrast to her brother who was the barely-squeezed-through type. Blister had
an official handle not unlike Dell's – Conway Thomilson Parish – but in contrast to Dell,
whose last name became his first, Conway became Blister because his father used to say
Conway's trouble-making left him with nothing but bloody butt blisters. Conway
Thomilson Parish, like his father, could be a pain in the ass. He and I had always gotten
along. We both had our hands full with the evil twins, who came from big money earned
in real estate – shopping malls and the like – post-World War II. They built and got out,
and I never quite figured out – not that I cared that much – where they had put the
billions they got from selling their crappy strip malls or their glitzy covered versions.
The Dells and Parishes came from the same New York City suburb – a rich enclave –
and they belonged to the same clubs and circles. Dell and Blister had known each other
since they were kids. They didn’t have to prove their worth or refurbish their rank, as did
the nouveaux riche family of the twins. The Patriarch was a dignified asshole but the
twins' old man was just an asshole. Actually the twins' family could have bought the
Dells and Parishes several times over, but they lacked politisse. They were simply pushy
and unforgiving. I was the outsider in every sense. Coal-miner's son with no money and
not much interest in money. During most of my ex’s family money-talk sessions, which
were incessant, I daydreamed. Never having had much money, I should have been gongho, but I wasn’t. I wanted enough to be comfortable and not much more. My
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
indifference meant the Asshole and his noxious sons (three boys along with twin girls)
felt I needed to be tutored in the ways of acquiring and exhibiting wealth. Tutorials I
ignored. Never the approach of the Patriarch. He came from moneyed society and
considered it crude to lord over me about a subject that I could not possibly understand.
He accepted me for who I was, and in my long friendship with him I can’t ever
remember a conversation about me and money. Conversations about money . . . yes . . .
but not because of me. For the Patriarch I was an MD with a highly-visible specialty,
and his world and mine were so different that nothing was to be gained by trying to
narrow the differences. Asshole never learned that.
I met Kate at a good public university, but Blister met her sister at one of the Ivys.
Blister got admitted because of his family, but she got in because of brains, although her
connections didn’t hurt. It was only a matter of time before I met Blister and his family,
including Dell and Marge. My marriage was less rocky than Blister's. I often had these
fantasies that the turf battles and personal zingers were really money speaking. To Kate's
credit she never played the money card with me. We kept separate checking accounts,
hers being flush and paying for what we needed to survive and thrive, and mine
incidental, that is, until I started my practice. My income never matched her salary as a
media consultant plus her trust fund. But I could pretty much buy what I wanted or
needed and could support myself in a very comfortable lifestyle without her. I became
less and less dependent on her financially. In other areas I was even less dependent on
her. That was our problem, I had decided in my professional manner, which I never
trusted. Her thumb was not big enough for me. Of course, the fact that her affairs started
almost immediately after we were married more or less meant that the dependency
explanation was irrelevant. My mother, a quiet and dignified woman but basically
uneducated, had made her feelings known about Kate – she could not be trusted. She
was right, and to this day I don’t know how she knew. (I know what you’re thinking,
however.)
As I walk to the kitchen suddenly in need of Peet's, I find myself asking again why am I
still in this circle of fire. This is probably the fourth or fifth time Dell and I have had to
rescue Blister. I’m not sure that we can assume any longer, as we had for years, that he
basically is good-natured, means no harm and will straighten out. It’s more obvious than
ever before that none of that’s true. He’s prone to causing trouble in addition to being
unreliable and less than caring. I haven’t seen him in years, but I often see Dell and
Marge, and their reports are always – probably dictated by the Patriarch – recovery or
progress, never relapse or regression. I’ve listen to what they’ve had to say and seldom
asked questions and tried to avoid answering theirs. Should I have done more? I don’t
answer my own question. I feel a rumble inside wherever such rumbles live. I may have
to ask and answer now. There was another rumble. I was not prepared to abandon
someone I’d known for decades and whose family I remained on good terms with, even
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
as I had some trouble summoning much empathy. Despite all the seriousness of the
morning, I have to satisfy the rumblings. I know I’m hungry.
After several errands for laundry and money, packing and a cab ride, I am on board a
late afternoon train. I go straight to the bar car and order a Maker's Mark on ice. I settle
into a lounge chair and open Sharon Dean’s latest, which I’m close to finishing. I had
heard her read from an earlier novel a dozen years ago – a handsome woman, born and
raised in South Africa, now a California resident, exquisitely dressed, with a command
of the language that was unforgettable – and I became a fan, having read everything
she's published. I would like to meet her and more. Never to happen. Such fantasies are
not necessarily so bad. In ways I can’t explain, not even to her, reading her as well as
listening to her I began to understand how writing about the small moments can elevate
the narrative. We always want to write about the big events, the memorable times, but in
ways we seldom appreciate the little stuff shapes our character.
By the time the train arrives in the city, I had finished Dean and taken a short nap. The
worst of the rush hour traffic past, I easily find a cab and am soon heading to the East
Side in a somewhat tattered backseat. I’m hungry, and hoping I can talk Dell into dinner
at a favorite eatery – Café Joul. Opening the door, having read my mind at a distant that
defied all physics and psychics, Dell says,
---“Dump your bag, reservations at Café Joul in a half hour.”
I drop my bag where I’m standing, do an about-face and we are out the door.
Jodi greets us at the door of the Café with embraces. She points to a table by the window
looking out on First Avenue, which we enthusiastically accept. No menus, just a
blackboard where the plats are in very white chalk, which we scrutinize on our way to
our table. Tony, our serveur, is known to both of us, and we shake hands, as we take our
seats. M Joul exits from the kitchen and heads straight to our table. We both stand. No
embraces. Handshakes only. In his halting English he says how glad he is to see me after
several months’ absence. And, he welcomes Dell back after an absence of about a week.
He also asks after Marge. If he knew about Blister, he said nothing.
I had introduced Dell and Marge to Café Joul and to M Joul himself several years ago. I
was in the city to see a former lover, a painter. As temperamental an artist as I’d ever
met, but in the right mood lovable, truly lovable. Her paintings have a kinky style that
implant the unreal inside the real. I own one of her paintings, and when I look at it, as I
do daily, I endure a dozen mood shifts in rapid order. She ordered me out of her life after
we had a brief re-acquaintance with the words “I barely ever knew you. We have no
reacquaintance to make.” Not my recollection, but I know marching orders when I hear
them. I found Café Joul the night of the day I was ousted. I discovered I was OK,
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although I have never been able to shake the memory, the good part. If she walked back
into my life, arms wide open, I'm sure I'd succumb.
Tony is a young actor with some credits already but not enough work to give up his job
here. Most of the people who work for M Joul are in theater or dance. M Joul once
fancied himself in his homeland as a performer, but he discovered cooking and that
became his stage. He is more than willing to accommodate his staff’s crazy schedules,
and they become devoted to him. Tony doesn’t bother explain the blackboard, since he
knows we’ll ask, if we have any questions. We don’t. Both of us order the ratatouille
niçoise, and as Tony leaves M Joul shows up with a new addition to his Bordeaux
collection with his compliments. He has opened and decanted a grand cru of merlot and
cabernet franc from a small chateau, unknown to me, although he hands me the empty
bottle. Since there were three glasses M Joul is going to share it with us. I've drunk wine
for a long time, but I'm terrible at identifying the bouquet, the fruit and all that stuff. I
know a good wine when I taste it, and this is superb. I’m thinking that, while Dell and M
Joul talk as oenologists often do, with little regard for me because they know how little I
have to offer. We'd all had this discussion before, and when M Joul turns to me, he
simply stares, as if to say the only opinion that counts is one that knows bad from good
and good from excellent.
---“Monsieur, you know excellent.”
---“I like to think I know excellent, M Joul, and I say this is excellent!”
We all laughed. This wine had that notable quality of hitting the tongue and then
smoothing itself out from there to back of the palate where the taste lingered. I love
wines like that, and apparently so did M Joul. From grape to taste to color to joy it had
Bordeaux written all over it.
---“I will drink this label again and again,” I said as I picked up the bottle to examine it
again.
---“Probably not,” said M. Joul, “because it is very scarce. The second bottle for your
meal will be good but not this good, I'm sorry to say.” With that he returns to the
kitchen.
Dell and I now knew we had to talk about what we'd like to avoid.
---“So, this sounds serious,” I ventured.
---“What's the stage several levels above serious?” responds Dell. We are quietly staring
at the wine glasses in our hands. “It's not in my nature to spoil an excellent wine by
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mixing it with my feelings of disgust and anger. I'm pissed beyond words to describe it.
I'm convinced I’ll only feel restored if he serves time, as he will. No extenuating
circumstances, no temporary insanity, no personal deprivations. Nothing. Pure and
simple, he was stealing people's money. Why? That's the unknown unless you’re ready,
my Good Doctor, to render a diagnosis. His strategy is to be mute, and the court
rightfully will declare that to be uncooperative, lacking in remorse.”
In all the years I’d known Dell, I’d never seen this side of him. I cannot tell if this is a
side of his personality that he had managed to keep hidden or if it is a temporary
aberration provoked by the pressure and tumult arising from Blister's arrest. I can
envision the Patriarch, despite his advanced age, fomenting a family hurricane. In the
local bar Dell was known for his calm demeanor, his modulated passion, his keen
intellect, but the Dell I just heard is of another world. As articulate as ever, he might well
have substituted venom for language.
I am not about to offer a diagnosis. Not yet. Not until I’m directly called upon. Dell’s
really not expecting one. If I can steer the conversation to the facts, as any good litigator
would understand, I’d give Dell a chance to pull back, enjoy his wine and focus on what
he did best.
---“He always fancied himself as living on the edge,” I remark, “but until now he was
never very close to the edge, legally speaking. Something must have finally pushed him
where he always pretended to be. Any ideas?”
There is a pause. Both of us drink from our glasses. As Dell looks at me, I know he’s
feeling some embarrassment for his outburst, an outburst that was defined by the
language he had used and not the sound he had made. Those around us were
undisturbed.
---“I'm not sure what we can say we know or don’t know. It is becoming obvious that he
had a hidden life that none of us knew about. I agree that the edge we all more or less
recognized in his typical behavior had ceased to deter him. As stupid as he could be
about creating messes, he was smart about observing limits. In the last decade the
pattern changed. As you know after his divorce during which he took a beating he
decided to distance himself from the family and especially the Patriarch. He was still
financially secure, and he made a choice, which I thought at the time was reasonable and
perhaps healthy, to use his money to launch a new business career. The Patriarch was
furious but could do little to stop him. The rest of us were encouraging. It did not seem
like a bad idea. Being on his own was . . . perhaps, what he needed. Alas, it turned out to
be a mistake. That just about exhausts my understanding. I've been around the
courtroom long enough to know that people just go off the deep end, and we – the
prosecutors, the defenders, the forensic scientists, the expert witnesses, the judges and,
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the most troubling, the juries of peers – make decisions without ever knowing what can’t
be known fully and exactly . . . what was behind the misconduct. We can’t, of course,
run a legal system on speculation, so we don’t. There may be a psychological or mental
or emotional or even environmental trigger, and while some forensics may offer a
glimpse, we legal eagles are for the most part in the dark. We can argue for miswiring to
try to save our clients, and sometimes the miswiring is so obvious that we can at least
plead insanity. But, Blister was not or is not manifestly insane, and the court would itself
be crazed if it accepted such a plea. No . . . Blister’s misconduct may have originated
with some sort of triggering, but I haven’t a clue what it might be. You and I both know
he won’t submit to long-term analysis to try to find out.”
---“Triggers, if they exist, are hard to find,” I say, picking up on Dell’s theme. “Traumas
happen throughout our lives to varying degrees and with varying consequences. In
Blister's case it would require what he would refuse unless ordered to do so, and even
then he cooperation could not be counted upon. Knowing as much as I do about his
background and history, I doubt if any diagnosis would involve surprise. He’s not crazy
in any textbook sense. He’s edgy, unpredictable, temperamental that can make him a
pain in the ass, but if he’s stepped over the line, as you suggest, I suspect it was not
much more complicated than a decision that he thought he could get away with it. That’s
bad stuff and can lead to worse stuff, but it doesn’t qualify as a severe mental disorder.
Look how many thieves, we have discovered, work on Wall Street and reside right here
not far from M. Joul. He’s apparently made a whopping mistake, for which he will pay
and from which he can expect some dark times ahead. Unless something else turns up,
Dell, he’s a rather ordinary crook except for the puzzling part . . . why . . . since he didn’t
have to be a crook. He’s richer than most crooks ever become. His being rich and all that
it entails made him into someone else who doesn’t know he’s rich and therefore he has
to get rich. If there are any surprises, that’s where they will lie, Counsellor.”
---“You can still do it, can’t you? I don’t know if you’re speaking the truth, but it
certainly is full of common sense, Doctor.” We both laugh before Dell continues: “I
could still wring his neck no matter what his mental state. I guess I'm less tolerant with
age. Not a good sign for what's ahead. However, why involve you? I'm sure you've
thought about that, and you might even prefer to be somewhere else.”
---“The thought had crossed my mind . . . .”
---“I haven’t been entirely honest with you. I wanted you to accompany me partly for
my own sake and partly to be a calming influence, if things got out of hand. I didn’t
invite you because I thought there was much of a chance for you and Blister to have a
quiet, self-revelatory or self-healing chat. That's what the Patriarch expects, but he hasn’t
yet come to terms with the fact that a judge and not he is calling the shots. And there's
more . . . .” at which point in the conversation Dell holds his wine glass in both hands.
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---“There's a reason beyond the obvious?”
---“Yes,” he says emphatically, taking a drink – not a sip – and setting the glass down.
---“So, do I find out now, while my mood is under the control of this splendid Bordeaux,
or do I have to wait until I'm cursing une bouteille moins grand de vin?”
---“Vos humeurs sont remarquablement cohérentes,” Dell answered without missing a
step, “and no, you don’t have to wait.”
Nor do we have to wait any longer for the food. Toni and M Joul arrive with our dishes
before Dell can continue, and, like rude Americans, we simply dig in.
Little is said for the next few minutes. We both are enthralled, as usual, by M. Joul's
creative cuisine. When a pause occurs and with the wine glass in hand, I say, “So, how
deep am I into this thing that your brother-in-law has hatched without my permission. I
can’t even begin to think how I could be connected?”
Dell laughs, now in his more usual quiet and unobtrusive manner. “I overstate. Your
direct involvement . . . non-existent . . . but someone you deeply care about has a role
that I'm not entirely clear about. That's why I wanted you to know about what was
happening – besides the fact you’re good company, even if I have to foot the bill.”
Dell seldom mentions money and never complains about footing any bill. One of his
lighter moments of the evening.
---“My first thought was to say nothing about the connection, to leave you out of it
completely and to let you find out on your own, if the story ever made the headlines.
We've been friends a long time – perhaps closer because we were not Parishes . . . we’re
outsiders – and I didn’t want to tread on our friendship, and, yet, all of that
notwithstanding, I decided you would want to know. I can’t defend that decision . . .
unlike me to rely on intuition but that's what it was.”
I wait, as I know I’m supposed to.
---“My information is incomplete. His current attorney filled me in and sent along some
affidavits and depositions that I read. He does not know, nor does anyone else including
Marge know about Sarah’s involvement . . . .”
At which I nearly spew the wine in my mouth over our table and all nearby tables.
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---“Sarah!” I exclaim, not in a shout, more like a fake sotto voce.
Dell holds his hand up as if to say hear me out . . . and I obey.
---“The circumstances, as I understand them are vague. They could change by the time
we get off the airplane tomorrow morning. At some point in the last decade Blister had
added asset management to his commercial real estate business. I'm not sure he was
licensed or certified to do so, nor am I sure that it is required where he's doing business.
Certain federal rules could apply, but only if he was actually investing the money.
Apparently he wasn’t. He handed the money over to a third party that owned and
administered several large portfolios. Contracts were signed, but I haven’t seen them yet.
He might in fact have been liable from the get-go, even though he didn’t think he was or
was told that he wasn’t. He probably earned a commission on each transaction plus a
share of the annual management fee. He told his current attorney that he did not know
what the portfolios contained. That strikes me as incredulous, but, knowing Blister as I
do, possible. As long as he got his share, he could care less about how he got it. He said
he believed the investments were in high-grade securities and bonds. But, when asked if
he could provide any details about the contents of the portfolios, he couldn’t. I think he's
lying. None of this holds together, even in the crazy world that Blister occupied. To
receive tens of thousands of dollars from various persons who were promised huge
returns and not look behind the curtain is ludicrous, even for someone as ludicrous as
Blister.”
Another pause, silence and resumption.
---“I haven’t learned much about the third party, but believe me, once the Patriarch's
hired-guns get started, we'll probably know more than we want. He's pursuing this as if
he were chasing a deal in his hedge fund – massive action. What he doesn’t understand
is that the judge, the prosecutor and the feds are not easily intimidated and are more
easily pissed off. We get information, but we may not, to use a legal term, get any relief.
If the economy hadn’t soured, Blister might have been home free for years. But, when
the requests for redemptions began climbing, he ran out of money, and the third party
more or less cut him adrift, at least that's his story. Complaints were filed, and the
regulators moved in. At the moment he's the only one on the hook. It didn’t help, of
course, that he'd fallen in love again. His own personal finances are a mess, and once it
became known that his company was bankrupt, his creditors arrived en masse. One of
the complainants was Sarah or more precisely a foundation that she was connected
with.”
He stops to pour us each some wine from a second bottle that had arrived unnoticed. We
both know the label, and the conversation can continue without the wine being
implicated in any way in whatever erratic behavior might follow.
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---“When I saw her name, I wondered if it was the woman you told me about. I’d not
forgotten. How could I? More chateau champagne than either of us should have
consumed and more love talk than either of us had spoken before or since. I've known
you a long time, I've gone through your marriage and divorce, I've met your ladies since,
but Sarah stole your heart, never to be surrendered, I'm afraid. You swore me to secrecy,
and I've never spoken a word to anyone. Neither of us has ever raised her name in
conversation since. I don’t know your current feelings, what you know or don’t know
about her, and that's why I rolled it over in my mind before making my decision. After
reading the relevant documents, I was sure it was her. Did I make the right decision?”
---“I'm definitely curious . . . the foundation, was it dedicated to the rescue and care of
abandoned or abused animals?”
---“How did you know?” asks Dell, his turn to look incredulous, but only for a second or
two before continuing. “It was and is. It did not go out of business because of the hankypanky with Blister but her association ended shortly after Blister's arrest.”
---”One of her passions. During her undergraduate days, her rescue efforts were pretty
daring. If some of those heavy-drinking, rifle-bearing types knew she was snipping
chains or fences that imprisoned the animals they abused and neglected, they would
have shot her. I used to listen with trepidation, as she nursed her coffee or wine and
talked calmly about plans to sneak onto someone's property and cut free a mistreated
animal. When she launched on of these missions, I’m not sure everyone else knew, not
even her boyfriends. It fit a side of her personality that she seldom exposed to anyone.
The psychiatrist in me should have wanted to know more about the her hidden world,
but I was never truly interested in finding out. What I saw, what I could interact with,
was so fulfilling I just drew a line that I never crossed. One aspect of this hidden world
was weeks would pass between conversation or emails or calls, and I learned to live with
that. I could live with it because once she made contact again, I was so enchanted with
what she had to tell me that her absence just dribbled away. Rescue seemed to be a
personal mission, and when completed . . . as it always was, fortunately, without any
gunshot wounds . . . it had a rejuvenating force. I learned not to ask any questions,
although I told her more than once, as she laid out her plans, I feared for her life. She
only smiled, never said a word to allay my fears or chastise my warnings. When you
said foundation . . . well . . . that was the first thought that crossed my mind.”
---“Do you still care for her after all these years, since our champagne-laden
conversation?”
---“I still care, and I think of her almost daily. It's not as intense, not as consuming. As I
told you then and can tell you now, I'm not sure she ever sensed the depth of my feeling.
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We never made love, we were strictly friends, platonic in every sense. And . . . I never
told her of the depth of my feelings. Just seemed out of place. Besides, she always had
boyfriends, and I was in no position to impose. The age difference made any other
course than the one that was followed absurd. I have wonderful memories I refuse to let
go of: spilling leaves over her head in the middle of the forest while her dog T tried to
catch them; skiing next to me and shouting lean in, be aggressive, as she glided and I
stumbled down the mountain; eating a bag of Dare-Brand Crèmes de Citron and cursing
me, good-humoredly, for having induced her to eat her first one. From time to time I
allow myself to swim around in them with no ill-effects I know of . . . And I should
know.”
---“And you’ve left out the oddest, at least, to your friends,” adds Dell with a wink.
---“Ah, the Hog. She tried with little success to teach me to ride a Harley. I even bought
a Harley, a red 1200 Sportster, so I could join her on her excursions through the back
country. I’d never driven a Hog, and for that matter I’d spent little time on bicycles after
I became a teen. My Dad told me he and his brothers had owned a motorcycle – more
like a motorized bicycle – that once throw him over the handlebars. I felt most of the
time as if I was about to be thrown over the handlebars. She had been riding much
against her parents’ wishes since she was 18. Sometimes on those backroads she pulled
up along me and shouted instructions in the same tone and vocabulary she shouted out
skiing instructions. On the Hog, it didn’t work. I never got it. I was terrified. I quit.
Stored the Sportster until she left town and then gave it away to a young male nurse who
had arrived at his mid-life crisis about a decade early.”
---“And do you ever wonder, if you had succeeded, she and you would have ridden off
into the sunset . . . .”
---“No! Our future was so limited that no Hog could have changed that.” I inject firmly,
pausing before continuing.
---“More fond memories with her than ever with the evil twin. When it – whatever it was
that we had – ended, I had teary moments, but I didn’t fly apart into a thousand pieces.
The tears are fewer and less frequent, but they do show up, sometimes surprising me.
After our separate paths became ever clearer, I also entered the most active, productive,
vigorous and creative period of my career. That helped to traverse the rockiest part of an
unmistakable separation. Finally, I tucked Sarah away, not in the sense of erasing but in
the sense of accommodating. I came to the realization that our time was over, as hard as
I had tried to keep it alive. I think probably learning that she had completed some longsought goals impelled me to close the book but not discard it. I don’t want to lose the
memories but I can’t live with any false hopes any longer. That's where I am at the
moment.”
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I stop, not to think but to drink.
---“And my intrusion hasn’t destroyed the calm, the accommodation?”
---“Probably too early to say, but right now I don’t feel it has. I'm curious, but nothing
worse. It's funny, Dell, after years of hoping we'd reunite in a physical place I would
now probably resist any effort to do so. I love Sarah deeply but I’m in love with a
memory, am I not? We have both become different people, and without any contact for
so long we would be starting over pretty much like strangers and might end up not liking
each other. A long answer to your question . . . .presto, here is the dessert we didn’t
order.”
Just then Toni arrive not for our dessert order, but with the desserts of berries and exotics
sprinkled with a nutty paste and topped with crème Chantilly in magnificent parfait
glasses, compliments of M Joul. We had no complaint whatsoever.
---“Rest assured I have no intent to involve you, except to get your reaction to whatever
conversation we have with Blister. There is no reason to be in contact with Sarah or the
foundation or any of the dozen or so other complainants. I don’t know what to expect
from this trip – it may turn out to be a bust. I told the Patriarch – and Marge agreed –
that I would make this trip and help to get the case on as strong a legal footing as
possible, and then I was out. Family members make the worst possible attorneys in
family matters.”
The evening is drawing to a close, and besides we have an early flight. M Joul appears,
as we prepare to leave. We compliment him, he thanks us and Dell indicates that we all
may be back on the weekend after Marge returns. I muse that I will move to the City,
give up cooking and eat here for the rest of my life.
After an extended hiatus Sarah has stepped back into the foreground once again. I sit on
the edge of the bed for a while before turning in. This bedroom’s a favorite for two
reasons: it looks out onto midtown by way of two side-by-side, floor-to-ceiling
windows; and it contains some splendid art – three small Goya drawings that Dell and I
had bought in a Barcelona gallery more than a dozen years ago. To their left is a painting
of a domestic interior that is both dreamy and whacky in gorgeous pastels but full of
oddly-shaped and out-of-place furniture inside walls that bend, a pending upheaval
looming. This is a painting that Dell had purchased a few weeks after a trip to the gallery
in Chelsea that represented the painter. This was one of her latest, a part of a series of
interiors that had caught the attention of the post-modern critics. I did not know that Dell
had made the purchase until my next visit when he and Marge and their friends had a
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mock unveiling for my benefit. It was that painter with whom I had a history, denied by
the painter to my face the last time I saw her.
To the right of the Goyas is a work by a third artist, Alison, a printmaker whom I’ve
never met, that consists of interlocking designs of triangles, squares, circles in bold
colors . . . fiery reds, deep purples and the blackest blacks I've ever seen . . . that seemed
to extend into the background forever. I later bought an even more exuberant print of
hers, and it hangs on the same wall with a painting by the painter . . . Alison’s work
conveyed solidity and control in contrast to the painter’s fanciful figures in gorgeous
pastels flirting with disaster, perhaps, beyond disaster. One critic had described the
painter’s paintings as vivid dreams . . . if real they must convey a less than sound mental
state. Apt, I thought cruelly, for the moment.
As we learn more about the brain’s dream works, a right-side function, we think it may
co-exist on a continuum along side of the rational and the logical, and the dreamy
business, which is so hard to recall when we wake up is trying to be organized by and fit
into the left side of the continuum, a square peg in a round hole. That’s what the
painter’s renderings often remind me of. She keeps trying to fit her crazy life inside a
space where it never quite fit. I never talked to her about these ideas and how they might
be reflected in her paintings because I almost never do that with the artists. I just try to
figure things out for myself. Her hostility became so palpable that almost anything we
tried to talk about she had occasion to blame me for whatever the failures or disruptions
were. Although I can’t say how, having romanced the painter, despite her denials, adds a
layer of incomprehensibility to her paintings that I also seem to comprehend more fully.
Romancing the painter was a bad idea. I was the object of her venom, and after her
command for me to disappear permanently, I eventually bundled her off into a very
different place from Sarah. I do not know how Sarah remembers me, but I know all too
well how the painter does. Sarah was someone to fall in love with, the painter was not,
even though, had she opted for in instead of out, I would have embraced it. After the
painter’s fiat, having lived with or through too many unrequited loves, I decided life
would be easier on my own. I rather liked myself that way, and friends hardly
noticed.IV
Six AM is a damn uncommon hour for me, as I set the alarm on my cell. I also check my
cell, which is equipped to gather up all my modes of communicating and messaging in
the electronic world, for what had arrived during evening with Dell. Most I can ignore,
but a couple I had to be answer and I do before lights out.
And when I awake to the rap on my door (my cell alarm had a few minutes to go) I ask
myself, as I do each morning, as if I am a Jungian, which I’m not, so what did you
dream? I can’t remember. Par for the course. Perhaps, if I were a confessed Jungian, I’d
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remember more than I do. Truth be told, I’m quite content not to know too much about
what my dream factory pushes out the door.
The flight in the morning is pleasant – pleasant because Dell only flies first class. I turn
down the offer of a Bloody Mary – I do have my standards – but enjoy the juice,
croissant and java. The supply seems endless. Dell has reading to do before he confers
with Blister and the lawyer that the Patriarch is about to fire. I peruse The Times, a paper
so thin now that I think I am reading USA-Today. I ignore Krugman simply because his
egomania strikes me as so classic I feel as if I’m in the middle of a session, one of those
really long sessions. It surprises me, no, angers me, that Krugman and his ilk are so
contemptuous of the President who inherited an enormous economic mess but somehow
missed the implications of Reagan Economics – “sleep-walking” he claimed – while it
was pretty clear to some of us who were awake where this might all end up.
At one time I had thought Krugman might be an interesting person to have a drink with,
and then I decided he couldn’t afford my fees, Nobel or not. He favors those simple,
elegant formulas that economists cherish and that often miss the complexity of human
existence. It would make my job easier if formulas and models in the form of perfectly
crafted words or drugs could erase complexities and psychoses. I belonged to an “old”
liberal left, not the left left but the progressive left. Times are different, and while I find
myself defending my stance when called upon – I’ve never been shy about debating
since my POD class in high school, where we had formal debates with a stage each
week in the classroom – I’d decided that retirement has granted me the privilege to say
“Fuck'em all!”
As we are about to start our descent, Dell put away all the things that had been
preoccupying him.
---“I apologize for being so absorbed. I don’t know why I'm so absorbed when I think
he's a goner. I keep looking for a nugget that doesn’t exist. Sometimes I think that I, like
others in the family, stand in fear of the Patriarch. What the hell can he do to me? I
suppose there are ways he could make my life miserable, but really . . . Blister is a thief
and will spend time in jail, as he should. What bothers me to no end is my alternating
doubts, that he could have figured out on his own how to cheat people and enrich
himself versus he was the front for some clever operators who figured out he wasn’t
smart enough to be a risk. There are hints of both. What do you think, my Good
Doctor?”
---“I think Paul Krugman suffers from classic egomania . . . .”
Dell’s laugh is louder than usual.
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---“Good grief, you’re not still reading The Times, are you? Most of us New Yorkers
gave it up years ago. Their columnists all seem classic cases of some disorder or
another.”
---“You know, it’s hard to withdraw from such rich source material. Now, your question
was not Krugman but Blister, right? He might be both clever and smart and not so clever
and not so smart. He could see the potential but not see the pitfalls. Doesn’t that sort of
sum up the Wall Street mentality? Maybe we've sold Blister short all these years. To us
he liked to push the limits and then was never daring enough to play it to the end.
Playing dumb may have been his goal. I haven’t read what you've read, but I'm
beginning to have doubts about a longstanding attitude that Blister was sort out to lunch.
We'll see. To be clever and smart doesn’t mean he's has enough of each to stay out of
trouble. From what you say, he's deep into trouble, and what we may learn is that he was
not a patsy but a participant, and they’re are yet others to fall. Just a thought.”
Dell is both listening and thinking, and facing the window as he nods. I’m sure that he
has already written more scenarios than I could come up with, including what I had just
sketched out . . . Blister's actions were foreordained and not innocent mistakes.
---“You’re right, there's more than we know,” said Dell, as he turns away from the
window simultaneously as the plane hits the runway, “and, once we find out the more,
everyone from the Patriarch down will be ill-prepared for the news. I can’t say why I
feel that, but apparently you feel the same thing. Perhaps, at this stage of my life I just
expect more messiness than clarity. Who knows how I’ll feel ten hours or two days from
now, but at the moment of landing in a city I don’t know and with a friend who
shouldn’t be involved, I just feel the ending will be that I will escort my brother-in-law
to the slammer.”
--“To be sure, many of your thoughts and fears have been circulating around in my head.
It's been years since I had to think about Blister, and as I've listened and considered, I'm
leaning toward the possibility that this is not a rerun. I'm feeling like a psychic reading
tea leaves or more appropriately croissant crumbs. I love flying first class so I’ll keep
spitting out worthless advice as long as necessary.”
We both smile, as the plane comes to a halt and the sounds of unsnapped buckles rings
through the plane. As we walk toward the line of taxis, Dell fills me in on what is ahead
for the day.
---“We'll take a taxi to court. I have a brief conference with Blister and his lawyer. Court
proceedings start at 11 AM, and I’d be grateful if you would take a seat in the back of
the courtroom just to observe the proceedings. Whether you will get a chance to talk to
Blister is not for me to decide. But, if you are in the courtroom and the opportunity
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presents itself, then you'll be readily available. I simply do not know if the judge will
grant bail, and I won’t know any more details about the case until I've talked to local
counsel.”
---“And if he released on bail?” I ask somewhat tentatively, as the cabby opens the door
for us to enter.
---“Good question. I don’t know quite honestly, if I’d rather have him in jail or at home.
Out of jail, who knows what he might concoct.”
Dell's cell goes off, and he is occupied with Blister's parents until we arrive at the
courthouse. Never having spent time here, I try to take in what I can from the
expressway. The courthouse, like most in post-9/11 America, was surrounded by barriers
and cops heavily-armed. When I was a kid the thrill of the dream about wanting to be a
cop was car chases, gun fights and hero welcomes – more predictable than standing next
to concrete barrier in anticipation of an unknown enemy, an enemy that may not even
exist.
We are not whisked through security. It is meticulous and time-consuming. Once inside,
the marble walls, floors and stairs leave their desired impression – serious, solid and
sanitary – the interior glistens as if cleaning crews wait in hidden panels to attack
periodically any dirt and grime left by the unclean populous. I had familiarity with a
courthouse as a kid. My hometown was the county seat, and in the center of the town at
its highest point sat the courthouse, a massive building four stories high that occupied
most of the town square. It was topped by a tower clock, half the height of the building
itself, with a dome that contained the machinery that ran the hands on the four lit glass
faces – north, east, south, west – on each side of the tower. Our neighbor was the chief
custodian, and once in a while, usually when his grandkids visited, he would let us climb
the metal ladder with him into the dome. It was pure pleasure for kids to ramble around
in a clock dome for a few minutes, an action that today's liability laws would absolutely
forbid. Maybe, if Blister had had the chance . . . no psychiatrist would buy that but I
often think about a childhood in which there were few expectations versus the opposite.
I had managed by hook or crook to stay out courthouses ever since, but my memory of
ours was welcoming to kids who had little else to excite them locally.
When we reach the door of the courtroom there is a short line of people waiting to be
frisked again. Waiting outside a closed door to the left of the entrance was a group of
well-dressed, briefcase-carrying persons whom Dell recognizes and turns me toward.
They are Blister's team, and after introductions I depart for the back of the line into the
courtroom. In the line I’m asked by the person in front of me what my connection with
the case is, and I reply, less than truthfully, I’m connected to the forensic team, although
I have no involvement in this case. That seemed to be satisfactory. After being “wanded”
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again, I’m allowed to enter what is a fairly-large, wood-paneled, well-lit room. The floor
to ceiling windows on one side have bars about halfway up. That made me wonder if the
very tall windows had looked less dangerous when drawn as an architectural rendering
than in reality. I doubt if the designers ever intended them for bars. I was told by Dell to
try to find a seat on the left side about midway, and I do.
I’m afraid to look around, but then all I can really see are the backs of a few heads. That
view always reminds me of The Forbidden Photograph by René Magritte, the mirror,
which the figure stood before, showed not his face and frontside but the back of his head
and backside, exactly the way he was seen by the observer. Looking at the backs of
heads led to interesting speculation about what is on the other side. Not just a physical
feature – big or small nose, curvaceous or thin lips – but an emotional expression. And,
of course, I have to wonder what people behind me are speculating.
After a few more minute the tables set aside for the prosecution and the defense fill up,
as the parties file in. There is Blister in the middle. I have no trouble recognizing him.
His appearance hasn’t changed much. He’s heavier, somewhat stooped and, not
uncharacteristically, antsy. Midway back, I can still detect a subdued cockiness, from the
smirk pasted on his lips to the disdain reflected in his eyes. He looks tamed, no, pained,
as if this is not supposed to be where he expected to be. I’m reading a lot into these first
impressions at a distance of 30 feet and not a word between us in years.
He turns to look in my direction, and we make eye contact without any sign or signal.
He’s been told, no doubt, where I’m sitting.
The judge enters, and the proceedings begin. The judge has a no-nonsense approach
about her. Under the circumstances I prefer that. I want justice but in an abbreviated
form, if that’s possible. I’d never served as an expert or been called as a witness in any
trial, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever sat in a courtroom, as I am now doing. If my memory is
not playing tricks on me and this is is my first time in a courtroom for a trial, an actual
trial, I’d rather be presiding over a wreslin’ match known as a faculty meeting. It’s
always surprising how unprepared we are for experiences we’ve never had before.
I’d heard about trials, seen movies or read novels with trials, listened to lawyer-friends
discusses their triumphs and failure in court, but this was my first time in the actual
presence of a presiding judge. It is eery, to say the least. The judge is as stern in
demeanor as anyone I’d ever remembered seeing. I can’t see the faces of the
participants, but I can surmise how they must look from how they sat ramrod straight
and utterly still. Once the judge has seated herself and arranged her notes, she simply
stared, menacingly at the tables of participants, first the defense table, then the
prosecution table, without a word. I do not think she’s is a good mood, that is, if the
administration of justice can have moods.
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Before my mind can finish the portrait in front of me, the judge has abruptly orders the
lead lawyers to the bench. I’ve always wondered about these conferences – lots of
whispering and gesturing – do they concern matters of law and procedure or do they
determine an appropriate lunch-break? The conference goes on for longer than I
anticipate, and I begin to realize that this is more serious than lunch breaks. Before it is
over, all the lawyers except Dell whose presence at the table is a matter of courtesy and
Blister join the circle at the judge's bench. She never smiles, not once. Her face is the
only one I can see. The backs of heads seated in front of me and encircling the judge’s
bench must have expressions – a range of expressions – but the view I have is a stern,
unsmiling judge, whose lips move, whose eyes dart, whose grimaces demand.
Something’s up, and I want the hearing to end even more quickly than before. Suddenly,
the lawyers are dismissed, and after scattering to their chairs, they turn attentively
toward the judge, knowing full well what’s coming. The judge announces without
explanation court is adjourned until 10 AM tomorrow. My wish is granted, but I appear
to be the only one in the courtroom happy with the announcement. Everyone stands, and
then the courtroom empties. Blister is led away with Dell behind him. When I finally
exist, I find Dell waiting for me – he looks ashen and beaten.
---“A major, no, a huge complication,” he says as I come to a halt in front of him. Just
then his phone rings, and after excusing himself, he walks a few yards to a corner. I’ve
not looked at my cell in hours, and I fish it out of my interior jacket pocket. The red
LED is flashing, and I notice a pile of new emails, messages and calls. Before I can
scroll through them, Dell is back.
---“Go ahead,” he says, as he notices the lit-up scene in my hand.
---“Not important,” I respond and stick the it back in my pocket.
---“Here's the story, briefly,” starts Dell. “Several arrests were made early this morning.
Blister was apparently a player and not the innocent or ignorant participant he's been
portraying himself. Are we clairvoyant, or what? I'm trying now to get information on
the arrests, but they were announced on Squawk Box because the arrested were persons
who appeared regularly on CNBC. The judge rightly delayed proceedings until
tomorrow so the two legals teams could be fully informed about the arrests and Blister's
status relative to the arrests. Obviously, I've got to stay. Marge is flying in late this
afternoon because she learned about the arrests before we did. Also, the contingent of
the Patriarch's legal team has already left the city. His motto has always been, when
under attack hire as many big guns as you can. It's insane. Blister has the largest and
perhaps the best legal team ever assembled to do what . . . find some character
witnesses, raise some delaying tactics, shift as much of the blame as possible to the other
perpetrators and placate a judge who is already angry, dislikes imported counselors and
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recently imposed the maximum sentence on another Ponzi-scheme operator. The
imported-legal-guns may be the best, but they may not have much to be the “best”
about. Marge's decision to come was partly to head off the attorney overkill, but I think
the local team is about to ask the judge to be excused. It's a mess. You’re quite free to
take the flight we scheduled and return tonight. You can use the apartment, if you wish.”
I want to leave, but I agree to stay, at least until tomorrow. Dell’s right. A tangled mess
becoming more tangled. Pretty clear that I can’t do much except commiserate with longtime friends. Dell’s face betrayed as much desperation I’d ever seen in a man who
almost always conveyed confidence and poise. Something big is unfolding, more than
just the revelation of the arrests and the delay in the proceedings, and while I can’t begin
to imagine how it will unfold, I can at the very least give Dell and Marge whatever
support my presence might offer.
Dell puts his hand on my shoulder, and says simply but sincerely “Thanks.” Another
phone call, he excuses himself, and I pull out my cell again. I scroll through all the
messages and decide that nothing needs my attention now. I turn it off and move out of
the center of the hallway toward the wall where Dell is in deep conversation. I begin to
think that it’s almost a decade since Sarah and I last saw each other, and about the same
span since I last had any extended contact with Blister. Yet I’m standing in this large,
marble-encased hallway because she or her foundation is a plaintiff against a long-time
acquaintance she's never met. Will she ever find out I know the guy who stole her
money, and would she care? Before I can ask anymore questions of myself I hear . . . .
---“Let’s get some lunch.” Dell’s standing next to me with a curious look to match my
vacant one.
---“Let’s do that” stumbles out, and we head down the hallway toward the stairs.
Outside, it is warm and sunny, and I wonder what Dell has in mind. We walk leisurely
away from the courthouse but with a sense of direction – that is, Dell has a sense of
direction and I’m tagging along.
---“Lead counsel gave me the name of a restaurant where he assured me we could relax
and eat well at the same time. I hope it's on this street in the direction we're heading.”
---“You had me fooled. I thought you were a resident the way you boldly set off from the
courthouse. So what are we looking for?”
---“Barren's Pub . . . .”
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---“Barren's Pub is the recommendation? American fishy & chippies, which could make
for a long afternoon.”
---“You forget the dazzling court conversation in store for us. Will food really matter?”
I can see that Dell’s recovering his confidence and poise.
Suddenly, there it is. Barren's Pub with a very large and very handsome portal that
intimated that Barren's is more than its name. Inside, the open space and the modern
décor are an utter surprise. I tell Dell we should sue for misrepresentation.
Once seated, the server describes offerings that defy the name pub in every respect. I
order the baked flounder and Dell the roast chicken. The wine arrives, and we are ready
to turn our attention to what's next.
---“Two lawyerly comments: first, the unexpected I feared is unfolding, and, second,
whether he pleads guilty or innocent, he will be convicted and serve time. Case closed.”
I know why Dell is such a damn good lawyer. I also know when he’s pissed.
---“Without knowing what was being said I could see from where I sat it was not going
well.”
---“Everyone deserves the best defense possible, but then there are instances when the
best is a waste of money and time. I would like to think that someone waved a few
bucks in front of him and, without asking the obvious, he bit. Under those circumstances
we could plead stupidity and maybe win a minimal sentence. Not now. Stupidity is when
one doesn’t ask the right questions that could have deterred one from taking the wrong
turn, but, as stupid as he is, stupidity, as a defense, is a non-starter. He rigged the books,
as he was told to do, so the creators could carry out their crimes with promise of big
bonuses for him as he, following their instructions, falsified their accounts with big
gains. We were all right in one sense . . . Blister could not have dreamed this up on his
own . . . but wrong in the other . . . he knew how to play the game invented by others
once it got started. What the real crooks – the ones arrested today – needed was
legitimate business that would serve as front. Apparently, there are other arrests to be
announced. By dumb luck – Sarah's complaint in fact – Blister got snagged first. A story
unfolding without an apparent ending in sight. He may still be granted bail but not
immediately. The appearance tomorrow will be complicated with the arrival of Patton's
Legal Army tonight. You may have observed this judge is no-nonsense to a fault. Judges
like that often work well with local attorneys who learn how to live with both the
restraints and opportunities. Outside counsel can be utterly tone-deaf to such
arrangements. Local counsel, upon learning of the army-in-transit, said honestly its
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appearance before this judge meant several weeks of hearings before she would even
consider bail, until, that is, they learned how to work in her court. I tried to call off the
invasion, but failed. Marge agreed with my request but refused to intercede directly with
her father. The decision had been made, and, well, you know the family as well as any
outsider. More wine?”
I have a fleeting thought that Blister had been a fool but the family is being more
foolish. I have no trouble imagining the Patriarch's line of defense – no jail-time, period!
I’m having trouble getting a fix on Marge, to whom I had not yet spoken about this. Yes,
she is family, but she had purposely staked out her own independent life. What I do
know is that once she arrives she will be less reticent about soliciting my opinions than
Dell is. Nor do I know if she has been told of the Sarah connection. I never shared with
Marge the details of our times together that I shared with Dell. En garde the appropriate
phrase.
Since we have no obligations until late afternoon, until Marge arrives, we decide to head
back to the hotel, which Dell's secretary had arranged for that morning. Dell’s agenda is
more work, mine is a nap. As I lie on the bed, I find myself revisiting a decision I made
before I retired. The university’s psychiatric clinic operated as a general clinic. If a staff
member was qualified and available, the clinic would accept a request for an interview.
As the financial meltdown spread, the clinic was close to being flooded with requests for
appointments. The question arose whether it should set up a special service that dealt
solely with the financial mess as a part of the university outreach program. I consulted
with people inside and outside the university about the wisdom of such a service. I was
dubious about counseling/intervention on behalf of those who had lost money because
they took big bets and made bad decisions. The President shared my concern, although
he knew as well as I did that money could be raised to support such a service. That I
eventually signed onto a pilot program that offered counseling/intervention was because
it was to have a research component. Mapping such behavior could have long-term
rewards in a greater understanding of how the neurological system works. That system, I
knew, was layered and complicated, and whatever we learned would not necessarily
prevent bad behavior but might make us smarter about how to answer the inevitable
questions that I was hearing from Dell and would hear from Marge. If we knew more
about such behavior or if we knew more specifically about Blister’s behavior, would that
not be a plus?
Recalling what I witnessed this morning and the conversations I’ve had with Dell I
wanted to think it would. I wasn’t sure, though, we could ever pin it down in such a way
as to make it comprehensible and predictable. That was what people wanted. Predict it
so we could head it off. The research might get us closer to comprehending in small but
important ways how such behavior was triggered and might even open some channels
for remedying the malaise. As to predicting – that some were more prone than others – I
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wasn’t sure that would ever be possible. As we’re slowly learning, the neurological
activity of the brain is usually ahead of the mind where we decide what to do and not to
do. Will we ever be able to map the brain to the degree that we must in order to allow
the mind to make the right choices? Holding onto that thought, I must have fallen asleep.
After I awake, I decide to check into the hotel gym for a short workout. It is wellequipped for aerobic workouts, something with which I never allowed myself to become
intimately acquainted, but in the far corner are racks of free weights. Lots of reps today
since there are few heavy plates or dumbbells and certainly no one to spot. I have the
weight-lifting area to myself, and I decide to do the full-body routine since I have
several hours before meeting Dell and Marge for drinks. Pecs, delts, tris – down the list.
Over the decades I’d learned how to block out other matters while working out. I like to
feel the pain of the capillaries breaking down so I try to keep my mind clear and to
concentrate on self-induced pain.
As much as the messiness around me keeps trying to intrude, I focus on the reps. In less
than an hour I’m done.
I lie on the bench for a few quiet minutes after doing my 100 abs. I’m thinking . . . I’m
having a hard time getting out of the counseling business. It’s not my friends’ fault. I
announced my retirement from academe, but I haven’t yet announced my retirement
from psychiatry. I was never shy about tooting my own horn about my chosen field.
Only a few know that I’ve been playing around with other ideas about a life after the
university, and they’ve never believed I was serious.
---“You look like a psychiatrist,” I was once told only half-mockingly. “You’ll never
escape into another life.”
In this case, Dell has been a friend and a confident longer than most.
---“Drawn together,’ he once said, “for self-protection.” I never felt in need of protection
in those years when I was much closer to the Patriarch and his kin. I was not an outsider
who had married into the family and was expected at any cost to burnish the image, as if
I were. I was simply an outsider who had befriended the son and heir apparent and to my
benefit who had a profession that the Patriarch respected. Heaven knows what I could
have expected, if I’d been an English professor or an abstract artist or a political radical.
I was more the political radical than the Patriarch ever knew and while he insisted that
his kids have good educations and he collected art, some of which included abstraction,
he did not feel comfortable or respective around those who made their living teaching
Shakespeare or painting cubes. I always knew why the Patriarch accepted me mainly on
my own terms, and I never sought to disabuse him.
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For Dell, who was a top-flight lawyer, one of the City’s best criminal attorneys, it was
different. Even though he came from more money and deeper aristocracy, he had to be
taught the way to live in the family. Our escapades together were in part to escape the
Strum und Drang of his being an in-law.
In the room next to the gym is a masseur who tells me he has no appointments for an
hour. I literally jump on his table without checking into his technique, which, I discover,
is the slowly or gradually intensifying of the palm of the hand on the muscles
themselves, exactly what I like my massage to be. The trick, I’d learned years ago, is for
the masseur or the masseuse to know when to release the pressure. Too long and it
becomes real pain; too short and nothing much happens. This guy, who could not have
been more than 30, had it down pat. I can feel the tension of the last few days, nay, the
last few months, abandoning my aging body.
Toward the end of the session – not a session intended to produce solace with scented
candles, light shadings and the like – he begins a story, one which he’d probably told
before because it was so well-rehearsed. Not a lot of pauses, hmms or ehs.
As unattached as I feel from his real life, past or present, as well as mine, I find myself
drawn into his story. He'd been thrown out of high school, and since college was no
longer an option, he decided to take up residence in a Scandinavian country because he
had a thing for tall, blond women. That's where he learned his massage style. His parents
were so embarrassed with his high-school behavior that they financed him for the first
year, but from then on he was on his own. He had a tall, blond girlfriend, a thriving
business and a slew of friends, but then his parents, whose generosity he never forgot,
even though he paid them back, took ill, and he packed up and came home to care for
them, their only child.
At the beginning of the session he’d asked me the usual questions about who I was and
why I was in the city. I had briefly answered his questions. He knows I am a
doctor/psychiatrist and am here to observe certain legal proceedings. He asks me to turn
over on my stomach and to place my head facedown in the padded extension he’d pulled
up at the end of the table and locked into position. The massage is almost finished, and
the story . . . well, I sense there’s more to come. His fingers lightly work muscles at the
top of my shoulders and along my neck. I can’t see him, but I can almost hear him
thinking.
I’m hardly prepared for the question that strode boldly out of the silence. Was it wrong
for him to fuck his high school science teacher? I do not answer because he had not
paused for me to give an answer. He continues. They knew what they were doing, but
they did it because they felt something. That is followed by a second question. Was their
violation of the rules made worse because they had failed to suppress their feelings for
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each other? To have fucked on the spur of the moment might be more forgivable than to
have concocted a deliberate plan to to do so, not once, not twice, but almost every night
for months.
The message has ended, and me . . . I’m sitting on the edge of the table, covered in my
white sheet, and he’s leaning on the end of the table with an expression that reveals no
guilt, only intense curiosity.
---“Am I correct in assuming, since you did not say exactly why you’d been expelled,
that you had an affair with a high-school teacher?”
---“Yes, you’re correct. A torrid affair by the standards of the day. Let me fill in other
details. We are now dating again. She after having been fired went to work for a local
start-up Internet company that only cared about her mathematical skills, married, then
divorced a co-worker and now runs the company that hired her. We plan to marry as
soon as my mother’s settled into an assisted-living center for seniors with severe cardiac
problems. My Father died shortly after I returned. After all these years of thinking about
the shame and guilt I caused others to feel but did not feel myself, nor did she, can I
expect that our marriage will help assuage or erase that shame and guilt? I love her now,
he loved her then, the only thing wrong if anything was wrong was that I was a student –
not her student by the way – as well as her lover.”
As I consider the questions I have yet to answer, I find his honesty, which is almost
unassailable, both jarring and refreshing. I can’t ever recall that in all my professional
years I had to unravel a dilemma quite like this.
I ask how his mother feels about his companion. They get along is what I hear. Not
unexpectedly, his mother’s endorsement is kind rather than affirming. I try to underscore
as gently as I can what was surely obvious to him – students and teachers having sex,
even for the most honest reasons, had unfortunate implications for other students and
teachers. It was one of those rules for the good of the community because without it the
situation was unmanageable.
He nods in the affirmative. The questions remain hanging, however. We both understand
without saying that rules are broken often because we can be blindsided by our
emotions. Under these circumstances we know we are breaking the rules, and worse,
perhaps, we intend to break the rules. The unusual twist to the story I’m being told is
that they took their punishment, separated, no further contact, never expecting to see
each other again, and, then, as if some fate had intervened, they found each other again.
The rules that had caused their separation no longer applied. The stigma remains,
however. That’s what they're dealing with now. Their lives are different, the community
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is different, the rules are different, but their past and the community remained
intertwined.
I sign the credit-card voucher and say, as my closing,
---"You've paid your dues, which were probably higher than they should have been. I
know personally about being blindsided, more than once, even though I, being the
professional I am, should by others' standards have known better, but I haven't.
---“You both moved beyond where you began, each in his or her own way, and that’s
healthy and powerful, not to lose sight of. You found each other once again after an
absence of nearly a decade. You’re not starting from scratch because you have a history.
That history, though, is part of the reason you’re starting again. You can’t bury the past,
but you can build on it. I think that’s what you’re doing, and if I ever return, I’ll look
you up and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that you’ve covered even more ground in this
revived relationship. You’re on the right track. Keep it going.”
He smiles, we shake hands and I leave with the thought that no other massage ever came
close to this one. As I walk to the elevator, ride to the top floor and then walk to my
room, I’m turning over in my mind that eternal conflict, knowing the rules and following
our emotions against the rules. Being blindsided, emotionally speaking, is the enduring
menace we're still never prepared for. Our brain may be both the culprit and the
protector – one side pushing to satisfy the emotions and the other to uphold the rules.
Once in my room I know I’ll find a message from Dell who would never venture near a
gym, and there it is . . . Lobby at 6:30 PM. After a leisurely shower I’m ready for the
night of the day I did not expect, in a place I do not know.V
Punctual as I am, I arrive a few minutes early, but Dell and Marge are already seated in
the lobby. I scan their faces, as I walk toward them, for some indicators of their moods,
but before much can register I am embraced by Marge, who briefly hangs onto my
shoulder. I speculate that whatever conversation between them has preceded my arrival
was not full of pleasantries. I express my deep sadness. When she pulls away, I can see
that this woman, so admired for her strength and intelligence, would not even qualify for
“just through the wringer”. It is worse than that. But, having recovered enough to show
her customary poise, she grabs me by the arm and says,
---“Com'on, we're kicking the fucking cans down the street to a one-hundred-star
restaurant that serves single-vineyard champagnes, and you’re our guest.”
Dell laugh, I laugh, Marge does not. The tension had eased only a bit.
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Indeed, having been whisked past knots of people, better dressed than I ever will be, to a
long table set for more than three in a small alcove, with a menu in hand, I can see that it
serves several single-vineyard (cultivate, process and bottle) champagnes at prices only
lawyers can afford. How they chose this place in a city neither knew, I can only assume,
was the work of other lawyers who like Dell and Marge can afford their oenological
tastes.
On a trip to Europe a few years ago we had drunk these champagnes with some Parisian
friends of mine, friends who taught me about champagne . . . and paté . . . and what little
slang I know. Dell and Marge loved that evening, not just the single-vineyard
champagnes but also the stories about visiting the chateaus, negotiating for purchases
and deliveries – my Parisian friends never bought champagne in local stores – and a
repas that lasted nearly four hours. Because I was living in Paris for a few months prior
to assuming the provostship, I was added to the chateau’s client list. Nothing like
answering the intercom and hearing “Votre champagne, Monsieur”. A case of halfbottles so that I didn’t have to worry about falling into or out of bed drunk – of course,
drunk with joy. Back in the States Dell and Marge tracked down importers of singlevineyard champagnes, a preoccupation that no one else understood but me, and at every
get-together we tried to toast this wonderful ritual that began by chance in Paris. We
would again tonight, despite the circumstances, in a slightly altered form.
The champagne arrives almost immediately, without any order being placed, as if it had
been awaiting our appearance, along with the sommelier, who was French from Reims
with a small plate of jambon des Ardennes, fromage de Chaource and biscuits Roses de
Reims. Our “ohs and ahs” cause him to pause, as if we’d revealed, unexpectedly, that we
know exactly what is in front of us, and we do. After introductions he clearly abandons
his usual commentary. We delight in knowing the vineyard, and we express equal delight
in French at hors d’oeuvres accompanying the initial tasting. This was not common at
most tastings, at least for the first round.
He explains that when growing up in a champagne-drinking rural household, the table
was often laden with goodies from the kitchen to accompany the champagne before the
actual meal was served. As one of the owners of this restaurant – and several others
across the region – he had recreated it here with much success. He understood how
Americans like to drink even champagne with food in front of them. He explains that the
hardest part is to find Chaource in sufficient quantities, and it had become necessary to
substitute other regional cheeses. Chaource, made from cow’s milk, soft and creamy, it’s
rind as white as drifted snow, was almost always what was served in the household of
the large, extended family he’d grown up with. We click our flutes again and again,
gouache as that custom is, but I think to myself that after the day we’ve had gouache is
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in order. After more minutes than we are entitled to, the sommelier departs, and with a
certain heaviness looming in the background we know what’s ahead.
Not a word is spoken until Marge sets down her glass and launches the conversation I
suspect we all dread.
---“I want your honest reactions, all of them, and don’t reduce it to a pitying sentence or
two,” she says looking straight at me.
---"Do I need counsel?” I reply, faking a sheepishness that makes her smile.
---“You may . . . .”
In a way I had already rehearsed this moment in my mind. I wasn’t sure when the
question would arrive or from whom, but I’d certainly thought about what I should be
prepared to say. I had no illusions that I understood the criminal mind any better than
anyone else. Obviously, I had information, access to research and formulated certain
opinions about how the brain/mind function, and they knew that. I cannot avoid this
conversation, but I’d decided to keep it at a general level. I knew that because of the
current neurological research a singular explanation – Blister’s behavior was attributable
to one region or one neurological response – was incomplete.
I also knew that despite the many hours we had spent together without a moment’s
reflection about the differences in our rank and status, these families had long worried
about their perches. Even though both Marge and Dell were not driven by who they
were or from whence they came, they could not escape it entirely either. In situations
like this, blood thicker than . . . came into play.
---“Marge, I’ll be absolutely honest, I'm as mystified as the rest of you. I'm conversant
with the theories and protocols to test the theories about brains and emotions, but I'm
also cognizant of how little we know about individual behavior despite some remarkable
scientific advancements. How to interpret Blister's behavior in lights of all the
experiences we shared over the years is daunting by every measure.”
---“And that is why the ‘tried and true’ system of weighing the observable evidence of a
crime and making a determination without trying to explain deep-seated motives or lifelong traumas needs to be preserved? In most cases it may work . . . .” declares Marge, as
if she is giving a summation in the court room.
---“Like you, I believe that this case could be disposed of by determining if Blister
cheated, robbed, lied, deceived et al. and justice could be served or at the very least not
harmed. That's not why you asked the original question, though. You . . . we . . . want to
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know more because we're baffled. The history that we’ve written into our memory
doesn’t match up with what we’re facing now. It's perfectly reasonable to want to know.
Scientists want to know as well, although their motivations probably have nothing to do
with connections. For them it's an interesting problem with no personal overhang. The
mystery we wrestle with is, despite Blister’s bluster and needling, we had convinced
ourselves he knew the edge not to step over. He didn’t. So, now we're trying to resolve
our dilemma of screwing up with his dilemma of screwing up. I’d like to think that if I
could offer a reasonably-sound psyche-based explanation our collective mental-health
would improve. I can’t, no one else can, so we're in for a bit of a ride.”
---“I confess, my Good Doctor and my good friend, I don’t know how much more I want
to know. Don’t I know enough about my sib and this driven family of which I'm a part?
Maybe I'm the one in need of counseling . . . ,” blurts out Marge in a confessional that I
have to wonder if she'd been weighing for a while. I can feel the ground at the
“compound” trembling.
---”I’ll leave the prosecution and defense in your hands, but I'm willing to bet we're not
done with speculating about why and how.”
---“The human-nature thing?” asks Dell.
---“I’ll bet we could argue that . . . ,” ventures Marge with a hint of disgust in her voice.
---“I have an observation that seems now to be prescient. When Blister was divorcing
the other evil twin I couldn’t understand why he demanded a form of alimony. I told him
it was a dumb idea. ‘Cut your loses, move on,’ I kept saying. After a while he quit
talking about it, although he had never said in my presence why he thought he deserved
a big settlement. Let me ask, did Blister and his ex's old man – that mean, nasty
alcoholic who rode Blister more than the Patriarch ever did – were they ever partners in
some money-making scheme that Blister wanted to hold over the old man's head to
punish him, his daughter and the whole crew? In other words, what may emerge over
time is that Blister's current aberrant behavior had a history that we're not aware of.
Whatever the antecedents, this venture, the more I think about it, was not without some
precedent.”
---“Even if we learn all the necessary facts, what pisses me off,” interjects Marge with
more anger than disgust, “is why was he’s playing around with illegal stuff? It wasn’t
necessary and was dangerous. He may not have been stupid, that is, naïve in the way we
often described him, but he really was stupid in another sense, the most basic sense. We
were both privileged, and you can chalk it up to my snootiness, but he should not have
so thoroughly squandered his privilege. I keep thinking of that movie – evil seed or bad
seed . . . .”
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---“Bad Seed,” proclaimed Dell, the inveterate movie watcher and historian, “with Patty
McCormick as the little devil. And she was bad, the point being that she must have
inherited her badness, to distinguish her from many criminals who may choose a life of
crime out of circumstance. It was a convincing story in behalf of the genetic-inheritance
explanation as opposed to the circumstance argument. Proving the genetic argument was
hard to do, but with human genomes and all that, who knows what the future holds? If
you buy into the inheritance model, you have to spend less time explaining how
anything bad happens.”
---“Well, genes can’t be dismissed. Genetic sources for mental and physical disabilities
is the wave of the future, isn’t it? The laymen and, in fact, some scientists think naïvely
in terms of panaceas, but along with so much new data has come new complications and
mysteries. We’re still being outwitted by Nature itself, but we’re making some headway.
In the last fifty years we've developed some important tools for diagnosing and treating
our mental disabilities, those that are genetic and those that are not. But, if my memory
serves me, Dell, Bad Seed was a metaphor for behavior we can’t explain. Of course,
adopted kids, since they may come from unknown backgrounds, are often the object of
such a metaphor when they go “bad”. A metaphor makes a point without making a case,
if I may sound lawyerly. Such misbehavior may arise from an array of influences,
inheritable and environmental, pre-adoption, post-adoption. It’s easier to use the
convenient shorthand of ‘bad seed’ than to try to figure out what causes bad behavior.
Was Blister born as a bad seed? I suppose we could try to find out, but I’m not sure how
we’d do it. Besides, is it possible that we’re all born with both bad and good seeds and
we can’t know and won’t ever know how the seeds mature?”
---“Bad seed or good seed, the lawyer’s job is to find the best possible defense.
Sometime the best possible defense is the best possible exit. That’s where we are, in my
opinion, in Blister’s case. I'm not his attorney, I'm his sister, but I’m asking myself what
the fuck? I don’t think his nature is deeply criminal, but I do think his nature is flawed.
We all carry flaws, and therefore I should be more forgiving. I’m not. Part of me has the
Patriarch’s values – Blister needs his ass kicked until it shows blisters . . . not ours,
which was how he got his name, but his – and I’m trying, not very successfully, to
suppress the Patriarch in me. I don’t know what life he thought he could or should have,
but, what’s worst, I don’t know why he thought that the life he chose was the life he
needed. Ha! Not very sympathetic, am I, and I don’t feel very sympathetic because, as
trite as it sounds, he should have known better.”
Marge drops her head before she adds,
---“I was hoping the champagne would lower the tension. Maybe another glass will do
the trick.”
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Dell fills our tall, lean flutes – best for holding in bubbles – and then asks, mainly I
think, to try to lower the tension and take the pressure off a visibly-distraught Marge.
---“Am I right in assuming, my dear ‘psycho’ – another of your nicknames, thanks to the
Patriarch – that to feel guilty and angry is to be expected under the circumstances?”
---“May I be recused?” I plead again.
---“No,” replies Marge firmly but followed by a laugh. “Even if you weren’t a
psychiatrist – and I don’t expect you to act in that capacity at this table – you have
always show a certain ‘good sense’ – is savoir-faire appropriate, given what exists in our
flutes? – when circumstances deserve to advance the collapse of humankind. It’s that
good sense I’m after.”
---“I’ll accept all the praise you can offer up, mainly to avoid underscoring my ignorance
when I’m expected to show the opposite. I’ve been trying since last night to reassemble
bits and pieces of Blister’s life in hopes that some light bulb will snap on. Nothing yet.
We all know I’ve not talked to Blister in years, and right now I can’t even get any fix on
his personality or, more precisely, changes in his personality since I last talked to him.
Last night I started down one path, as Dell will attest to, that Blister just made a stupid
mistake. Knowing what we do now, that doesn’t hold up. So, here I am in your presence
trying to stitch together the bits and pieces I can recall about his behavior into a more
elaborate scheme that includes the possibility of a more troubled mind than we had ever
thought about. I haven’t made much progress. Obviously, I working with so much outof-date information, as you are too, curiously, that I’m pretty much spinning my
wheels.”
I ask if I may have the last piece of ham, and Marge, with an approving grin, hands me
the plate.
---“Our problem is that someone with a sizable trust fund should not be messing around
with the small potatoes in the venture that has ensnarled him. He’s not the first, certainly,
but that doesn’t help us find an answer. He would never lack for money, and if he
embarked on criminal activities, he must have considered, even briefly, the foolishness
of misappropriating other people's money, going to jail and losing access to real money.
I don’t know, you may know his true financial state, when he made his fateful decision.
Dell has said that his finances are a mess. Even granting that's true, I find it hard to
accept that, when he made his fateful decision, he was facing impoverishment.
---“As messy as his finances were, did he make his fateful decision because he had
temporarily a cash-flow problem or because he wanted simply to make more money as
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fast as he could. Do we know . . . I don’t but you may . . . if his actions were dictated by
the want of more or the need for more money? Two different motivations, although in
the financial world Blister occupied, they can become intertwined.
---“Why choose a path that only made matters worse? That's the puzzle. His case is not
unique, and even though he was the son of a Wall-Street scion and knew the game, he
seemingly made a decision that in the current context suggests not need, no matter how
messed up his checking account was, but want. The bad-seed explanation is not
necessarily wrong but is so incomplete that it extends the puzzle rather than explaining
it. All of us may be faced with this same temptation, and yet the majority find ways to
neutralize it. That leads me to the dopa theory . . . .”
---“The brain's pleasure dome, right?” asks Dell. “I’d like to hear more. Recently read
about it in a law review case study where the insanity plea was thrown out. The dopa
plea was also.”
---“It's attracting a lot of attention and lots of dollars and lots of press and criticism. And,
we were learning that dopamines do not act independently. They are connected and
interconnected. The brain’s inter-connectionedness makes any single-platform
explanation suspect. Even so, we know that we activate dopamines in order to reward
ourselves. In some people the desire to be rewarded gets out of hand. Other brain
functions meant to moderate the pleasure-seeking fail to kick in as they should. In
general terms, the result is that seeking pleasure overwhelms acting responsibly.
---“In the old days analysis would involved a lot of repression and displacement but,
now I’m not sure how this urge to shift responsibility, which can happen consciously and
subconsciously, should be treated. Talk alone is probably not enough, although the
profession is divided over that. Many psychiatrists and therapists are trained in talk so
they will defend it. The issue is . . . if there is a genetic basis for why some can’t turn off
the pleasure-seeking, what good will talk do. Pharmaceutical, on the other hand,
although in their infancy, can alter neurological processes in way that talk can’t. And,
yet, some neurological scientists have tentative experimental results that suggest that
through the study of epigenetics, that is, the mechanisms that can change how genes
express themselves, talk may be one of those external factors that can affect genes
without changing the genome itself. On scans we can watch neurotransmitters go to
work in one or more parts of the brain when pleasure-seeking images are flashed on the
screen, and the hard question to answer is how to moderate those activations that most of
us, it appears, can do.
---"Blister may belong to that subset that can’t naturally turn pleasure-seeking off.
Pushing that button to buy or sell, ante up instead of bowing out, drink another shot or
take another shot . . . all those activities, which can get us into trouble, have a genetic
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component and may also have an epigenetic component. It is entirely possible that what
could be turned on in Blister but almost never in the Patriarch who was a cautious, hardnosed, conservative money man could be not in what he inherited but what his
upbringing might have affected. That’s the epigenetic question. I don’t mean to offend,
Marge, or sound flip . . . .”
---“Oh, please be flip . . . I need that after days and days dealing with brooding,” I hear
Marge say firmly and seriously.
---“I’ll take that as permission to proceed.”
---“Please do, although I’m slowly running out of focus. What is it about high finance
that attracts the likes of Blister and for that matter . . . my Father?”
“My Father” was not a phrase often used in the Parish family. I can see that the struggle
for her more than Dell was between the affection she should feel and the disgust she
does feel. Not with the Patriarch but with the failure of the son to live up to the
Patriarch’s standards.
---“Let me try in a few minutes to focus strictly on the high-finance component. The
word that we hear most often, when talking about a financial bubble and meltdown like
what we've gone through, is greed, one of the two words, fear and greed, that constituted
the “animal spirits” according John Maynard Keynes. Some historians think that Keynes
believed without any proof that greed had a natural limit – one could only acquire and
consume so much. But, money is not like other stuff, and our appetite for money seems
endless. Dante had no doubt, however, that money corrupted. Circle Four, the avaricious
or in our time the greedy were stuffed, head first into holes drilled in the rocky terrain.
Moderation was certainly portrayed and highlighted as a better lifestyle when he and
Virgil surveyed the flames licking at the feet of the occupants.
---“Post-Dante or -Keynes we know something rather disturbing about money-grubbers:
the same part of the brain that lights up for cocaine addicts can light up for traders,
ordinary or rogue. Not every trader approaches – and I include myself – the market, as if
he or she were snorting coke. Some traders – I would include the Patriarch – are
studious, careful, conscientious, sober about trading their own accounts or their clients'
accounts, and yet studies show that despite all the sober-mindedness trading itself affects
the chemistry of the brain in ways we can’t predict. We know quite a bit about how those
neurotransmitters react, but we're still trying to figure out why they react one way in one
person and another way in another. Lately, we've had to come to terms with both
triggering the dopamines in one part of the brain and then processing the neurons in
another part.
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---“I've often wondered whether I got an inferior supply of dopamines. I find genuine
pleasure in a few things. I can hear a piece of music and play it a dozen times. I have to
have it and I get a kick each time I play it until the novelty wears off. Apparently, the
neurons have figured out that while it continues to give me pleasure it can be anticipated
and accommodated. Sometimes weeks later I go through the same experience. A rush
has happened with other experiences, like food, love-making, walking through a
museum, but none of these has ever reached an excessive level. In fact, the experiences
that cause rushes in others with unfortunate consequences barely stir me. I turn skeptical
instead of hopeful. The skepticism part of my brain apparently rules the pleasure part.
The kick that some people want and may go to great lengths to get isn’t my thing.
Gambling has no appeal because, knowing that the odds are against me, why would I
throw away money? Drugs fall in a different category. The kick is supposed to lift you
off the ground, precisely where I don’t want to be. I like having my feet planted. Sports,
well, baseball, sure I get a kick out of watching a pitchers' duel but it's fleeting. The
stock market I play around in is more a chore than a pleasure. Like Blister and everyone
else I want to see if I can win a few extra bucks. Pulling the trigger doesn’t cause much
umph. I buy with neither hope nor fear. I think I have made a rational choice, but I
always have my doubts, which, it seems, overrides whatever thrill I might feel from
having made the choice. When I sell for a profit I think, ah, money for wine; and when I
sell for a loss, I think, shit, this is a bore. Oddly, I expect to win and to lose, I accept that
as part of the game and quite honestly I’d prefer to own a printing press.
---“So, like everyone else I have a dome of pleasure that is activated and processed with
different results from other. Many case studies of gamblers, addicts and traders reveal
that they can’t live without pulling the trigger over and over. Dopamines have a function
in that the extent to which the pleasure is fulfilled or not allows brain to engage in the
prediction business. If a certain pleasure yields a certain result and if it happens more
than once in that way, the brain can assume it's predictable. When the result disappears,
the brain assume it's delisted. That's the way many of us live – we dig the unexpected
pleasure and we shrug off its loss. For some, however, dopamines trigger pleasures we
can’t live without. It's not clear what causes this or, more importantly, where it comes
from. Are we born with pleasure domes of different configurations or do those
configurations evolve from our experiences or are we missing something else about the
way the brain works?
---“What is clear is that some people come to depend on that rush and try to experience
it over and over. In the case of the one-armed bandits and the multi-armed markets,
randomness is the rule. Some gamblers and traders have done a pretty good job of
figuring out randomness. The Patriarch managed that to a degree. But, many more never
figure it out. I'm always amazed how traders or gamblers or others who count on the
rush will tell you in one breath it's random and in the next conquerable. The research
suggests that it's the pulling of the trigger that matters. Even if you know the reward you
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seek is out reach, you still have to pull the trigger. Whereas the rush can become a
routine for others, it remains a rush no matter how many times you pull the trigger.
---“It's not surprising that many aggressive traders are also aggressive gamblers. While
battling bulls and bears on Wall Street they’re also battling their peers in casinos. You
don’t have to be a trader to be a gambler, of course. Bill Bennett was a big-time gambler
while he was also being a big-time provocateur on America’s declining moral sense.
Gambling was exempt because he could afford it and wasn’t doing anyone harm. It was
strictly for his pleasure. As with most things, Bennett missed the point because he
viewed his behavior as more righteous, even though he was engaged in deleterious
behavior. His compulsion to gamble was not much different from his compulsion to tell
us how to live. I have no doubt that his dome of pleasure lit up every time he pulled the
lever or cursed a Democrat. He was addicted because a part of the brain convinced him
of a pleasure derived from what he did. It’s not uncommon for traders like the Patriarch
and gamblers like Bennett to thrive on telling us what’s right and what’s wrong. I
speculate, but that pleasure dome and whatever other parts of the brain with which it
may operate in tandem can be a troublemaker. Blister may be one of those hyperactive
dopa personalities. He expects and seeks to lit up the dome of pleasure. Why this is true
of some and not all remains a mystery, and if or when we find out it will probably be too
late for him.”
I’d said more than I’d intended. The silence is broken when seconds later two serveurs
arrive with pad in hand. Actually, the order had been given for a Beef Wellington, and
we are being asked to indicate some preferences for side dishes.
Before leaving the serveurs fill our flutes with a newly-opened bottle. Never once do
they ask “Are you enjoying the champagne . . . ,” or “Can I get anything for you . . . ,” a
classy place, to be sure.
---“Let me warn you,” Marge, speaking to me, “dessert may be interrupted by the
onslaught of attorneys-at-large. I doubt if they'll be much interested in dopa or any other
mental-health approach. They have simple instructions, which, I suspect – knowing
lawyers as well as I do – they think they can pull off. I'm not sure how Dell feels about
this, but I'm resigned to let them pursue their course, whatever the outcome. I have no
intention of arguing this case or of trying to shape the defense. Let the chips fall where
they may. It doesn’t sound very sisterly, but it's the only position I can take and not lose
my marbles. And, worse my Good Doctor, what you just said, whether true or not, has
simply confirmed the posture I just announced. Thank you.”
---“I more or less agree,” adds Dell. “I doubt that this judge will be convinced tomorrow
to release Blister on bail, not yet at least. It may happen later after the arrests are
completed, but not tomorrow. Blister did himself no favors by trying to play coy, but
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that's not the issue now. The judge will choose caution. When the current arrest cycle has
played out, then there will be the time to consider bail, and not before.” Dell readies his
napkin and turns his attention, as Marge and I do also, to the food on plates in front of
us. This Beef Wellington will save me from any further analysis of life, personalities and
the unknown.
And, when the dessert arrive, as Marge predicted, so too do the attorneys-at-large.VI
While introductions were made, the serveurs prepared the places for the newcomers . . .
silver, plates, champagne, flutes and then attentively held the chairs to seat the
newcomers. I whispered to Dell, “This must happen all the time . . . .” The head of the
lawyer pack whose hand I shook last was known to me and I to him. Scott was the
Patriarch's personal attorney, and we had attended several long weekends at the
compound. Smooth and urbane but also like me a lover of champagne and opera.
---“You’re still at it . . . hunting down the last bottle of the best champagne . . . how are
you. It's been a few years?”
---“I'm well, thank you, and you?”
---“I'm still ambulatory and mentally alert, at least, I tell myself not to worry . . . you’re
working out . . . I can see.”
---“The answer is yes, for how long I don’t know. Speaking of health . . . I learned from
Dell that your wife is not well. I'm sorry to hear that. What is the latest?”
---“Thanks for asking. The news of late had been encouraging. It's an organ cancer, and
the new treatment seems to be working, for now. I will tell her you asked. We often
reminisce about our time in Paris. We'll talk later . . . the attorneys have things to argue
about for the next half hour.” With a pat on my shoulder, he turns and walks to the other
end of the table and seats himself.
As Scott is getting ready to start a discussion, Marge leans over to me and says, “You
may not want to stick around for this . . . I’d check out the bar at the end of the room.”
And, then to my surprise, the only other woman at the table, on my right, Natalia, turns
to me and says, “the bar is preferable to having to take the 5 th later, the less you hang
around lawyers, the better.” We laugh. I excuse myself and walk across the room to the
bar. A minute or two later the serveur shows up with my flute of unfinished champagne.
The bartender smiles and says, “Welcome, may I freshen up your champagne?” and
without hesitation I reply,
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---“Thank you.”
He’s not busy so we chat about the restaurant, its history and evolution. I learn that all
the owners are Europeans, but not French, although that’s the restaurant’s signature.
Both le chef and le sommelier are part-owners and French. I ask if they own other
restaurants and learn further that they own more than a half-dozen, mainly on the West
Coast where they have a large following. This is the first of several ventures planned for
outside the West Coast. The restaurants are similar in design, style and menu but the
owners try to accommodate themselves to the culture, geography and clientele at each
locations. This being the first venture outside the West Coast was regarded as a test of
whether their West-Coast model could be exported. It has thrived because it is so
different from any other local eatery that it has no competition.
I assure him that if I ever return to the city I would return to the restaurant. Just then I
feel a hand on my shoulder and hear Natalia's voice,
---“It's safe for you to return, but first let’s finish our champagnes,” as the barkeep
refreshed hers.
---“Is the legal strategy set?” I ask, having not thought of anything else to say.
---“No, there's some disagreement, and I decided that I should let Scott iron out the
differences. I heard Dell order a ‘nightcap' so I thought I should rescue you from one
evil only to immerse you in another one.”
---“Evil is my way of life, I’m afraid. How about you?”
---“Been known to engage, yes, but since business is still being discussed I have to
watch which evil I choose.”
---“Since time is fleeing, let’s concentrate on the champagne,” and I raise my glass and
she follows.
Before any conversation can begin, the serveur arrives to announce that Armagnac is
being served at the table, and Natalia and I bid the barkeep good evening and head back
to the table, For the next half hour nothing is said about legal strategies or differences
except Dell whispers in my ear,
---“Tomorrow may be a fright.”
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On the walk back to the hotel I am paired with Natalia. She is about five seven, trim
with an athlete's body and piercing black eyes that shine in the dark.
---“Scott talked about you on the flight down – he's a fan,” she ventures.
---“Opera and champagne create odd bedfellows – well, friends.”
---“Yes, he said you know a lot about both, and I must admit I'm among unlearned.”
---“You may be on the better path – they’re expensive, unpredictable and endless.”
---“My ex always complained that I was too driven by my work, and I am or I was, but
that too can be expensive, unpredictable and endless. Do you have to be retired to drink
champagne and to attend opera with the passion you must have?”
---“This started long before retirement but is enriched by retirement . . . however, you
don’t strike me as a candidate for retirement any time soon.”
---“Maybe never. Right now, not anywhere near the radar screen. I'm not sure I like what
I'm doing all that much but haven’t found anything else to spin off to. Life is that way –
the rut is long and deep. How about you?”
---“Yes, long and deep. I started retiring a year ago, and it took until this month to pull it
off. I also worked a long time, several decades. I've done a fair amount of professional
writing and plan to do more but in a different vein, I hope. I don’t miss all the academic
stuff I've been doing for years if not centuries – that's how it feels – but I haven’t really
got the new program underway yet. I'm working on that. I'm pretty much a solo hedonist
so I’ll just let things develop.”
---“I thought it was evil?”
---“I'm trying to expunge the evil while expanding the hedonism.”
---“You may be the first. Scott told me you and Blister married twin sisters. Did you two
ever become as close as the twins must have been?”
---“The evil twins. I first met Blister and Marge (a year younger than her brother) during
our college days. He and I dated the twins and eventually married them. We were fairly
close until the marriage shit hit the fan. I opted out first, and only saw Blister
sporadically after that. I spent more and more time with Marge and Dell partly because
they live in the city I love and the train takes a little more than an hour, when it’s on
time.
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---“I honestly know very little about what Blister’s been doing since our respective
marriages dissolved. I saw him off and on at the summer compound in the first few years
after his divorce, which he had more trouble accommodating than I did. Unlike Blister, I
got out fast and stayed as far away as I could. After that his attendance at the compound
summer affairs began to flag. I saw him from a distance in court today but haven’t talked
to him in a long time. Dell, Marge and the family seldom mention him. He’s always had
a ‘black-sheep’ veneer, and now I guess he’s made it substance, not just appearance. He
and the Patriarch have never had much of that father-son relationship, even though,
oddly, they’re alike. As you no doubt have observed, however the Patriarch may feel
about his son, he will defend the name with as many guns as he can mount. No offense
meant.”
---“No offense taken. Divorces can be shit-laden, to be sure. I say that, as a lawyer trying
to finish a divorce from another lawyer. It's like citing all the laws since Hammurabi. I
still haven’t signed my document of freedom. And, it's only property, no kids!”
---“We had no kids either, but we had things. I was luckier than you. She walked out,
and after I convinced myself I wanted her gone – it took a bit – I began to dispose.”
---“I wish he'd walked. My life would be simpler. Instead he's more in my life than when
we were supposedly living as husband and wife. I know my legal rights, and I know how
to make the law work, but it's wearing me down, I guess, I just wish . . . .” Before she
can finish, as we mount the hotel steps, Scott appears at her side and the conversation I
wanted to continue comes to an end.
Inside the hotel, as the circle of lawyers talk about breakfast-meeting arrangements, I
excuse myself. I’m hardly heading to bed since I seldom retire before midnight, two
hours hence. Dell and Marge give me instructions about the proceedings tomorrow and
also directions to the local museum, just in case . . . I assure them I’ll be in court. We all
shake hands – a little extra squeeze from Natalia – and I pointedly move in the direction
of the bar. I have to reaffirm my vows and clear my head.
---“What can I do for you, sir?” ask the bartender, who has no patrons and seems to itch
for some action.
---“I had champagne for dinner and Armagnac afterward, and I'm not sure what a proper
nightcap to a nightcap should be.” I say.
---“May I . . . .”
---“Indeed, you may,” I respond, like a laser unleashed, much to his surprise.
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The surprise is splendid. Benedictine DOM, which I had not drunk for years, its
spiciness seems to smooth rather than excite. It isn’t worth trying to explain. I sit back in
the most comfortable bar chair I’d ever sat in, and take stock, only to be interrupted by
another tap on a different shoulder, but, I’m sure, by the same hand.
---“I’ll take the same,” she says, as she slides in next to me.
---“Did I read the cards correctly?” she asks, not a trace of a smile, more like the face of
a gambler.
---“Apparently. Because you’re where I’d like you to be. I’m glad you can unravel
symbols and signs, since I’m terrible at such things.”
---“But . . . you’re the psychiatrist?”
---“We can be very bad at things we’re supposed to be good at.” We both laugh.
---“I come from a family of gamblers who allegedly know how to read facial
expressions and body movements, although I’m a doubter. The simple answer is that I
watched you walk not to the elevator but the bar. How’s that for sixth sense? The only
gamble I took was to follow you and occupy this chair without asking.”
---“The stakes were hardly high. You watched me, one of the ‘sad, old men’ heading to
the bar without you.”
---“Didn’t Roberta have different men in mind?”
---“As did F. Scott Fitzgerald, I’m afraid. I’m trying to write the ‘old geezer’ version.
Perhaps, you can help.”
---“You’re on your own. I’m unacquainted with geezerism.”
---“Hang around long enough, and we’ll remedy that.”
---“Psychiatrists are a shadowy bunch. Why didn’t you don your cape and fly off to
Vienna?”
---“A lovely city, indeed, Lois. Are you ready?”
---“So, you grew up with a Superman complex?”
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SLIDING GLASS DOOR
---“Far from it. Funny . . . every kid I knew, myself included, wanted to be a cop or
fireman. Nothing to do with civic pride and all that. Rather the excitement of chasing
crooks and riding firetrucks, and I don’t think a single one of us made it into public
safety.”
---“Different for me since I grew up in that city by the bay, and, quite naturally, my
classmates and I played different games. Being a cop was about as low as you could get
on the totem pole, but being a high-class whore, excuse me, escort, had a lot of appeal.
Guess what, it happened, not to me I’m happy to report, but I could name names.”
---“I certainly can’t top that. To change the subject, no more than twenty-five words,
what should I expect tomorrow. I like to be prepared, although in this case almost
anything goes. That I'm sitting with a woman I barely know, in a city I barely know,
talking about a suspect I barely know, anymore, that is, I guess I should just let it
evolve.”
---“I'm going to let it evolve for you, except to say you probably won’t have a chance to
talk to your old pal unless you stick around for a week or two.”
---“Honestly, I'm not sure I want to see him or talk to him or pat him on the shoulder, if
you know what I mean. I'm supporting him at a distance; not much more. I’ve known
this family a long time, been better treated by the Patriarch than his own but kept my
distance from the never-ending feuds. Occasionally, the Patriarch – no, usually the
Patriarch’s wife – would ask my opinion, which, if I rendered one, was sincere but not
profound. I've always been closer to Dell and Marge than Blister, even when he and I
had to spend those summers with the evil twins and their family at a midwestern
compound on Lake Michigan, quite different from the Patriarch’s. A few times with our
spouses Blister and I would show up together for a weekend at the Patriarch’s
compound.
---“As I told Dell and Marge earlier, before you arrived, I’m not so certain now, given
the recent events, that we ever had a good read on Blister’s mental state. He was always
a bit of a troublemaker . . . a bête noire to his parents, sibs and friends . . . by choice, I
would add. I can’t say he was ever well-liked, certainly not widely admired, but we all
came to tolerate his antics and moods. We’d speculate about what was going on in his
head, but we never did so with much worry. Except for the Patriarch. His was not worry
but anger, that his eldest, heir apparent, entitled and privileged, should be such a
screwup. Frankly, if there were patterns or incidents that should have raised red flags, I
missed them. After our divorces he separated himself more and more from the family,
and after a while his presence was hardly ever visible and his name was almost never
mentioned. That was the state of things when Dell called me several days ago.”
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---“Would it have made a difference if you’d stayed in closer contact? Would you have
been able to read the signs of whatever was pulling him down a forbidden path?”
---“Problematic. It was not just the absence that made it hard to see his potential
waywardness. He was somebody I knew on several levels, and under those
circumstances, unless his behavior was visibly dysfunctional, I would probably have
given it little thought. Being in family and acting as family psychiatrist . . . not a good
combination.”
---“How about me? We’ve just met. You know a little but not much. Have we gone too
far for me ever to be a client?”
---“I would resist. I haven’t seen or heard much that raises any red or yellow flags.
You’re going through a divorce, and like any withdrawal, pissed off but not falling apart
yet. Over glasses of champagne and cordials you do not yet show any of the symptoms
of depression or even mild disorientation. But, really, what do I know? Many of us find
our way through such shit. We all know Freud’s stages, and while we may skip some
steps or rearrange them, there is some truth to what he theorized. Grieving over loss can
lead to more serious mental disorders, but, I hate to disappoint you . . . your mental
disorderliness is not yet evident.”
---“And, if I need medications, you’re the man to see?”
---“Of course, two aspirins before bedtime and stock extra bottles of champagne.”
---“Sadly, I must confirm your Benedictine-laden diagnosis. I do not feel depressed, just
tired. I’m not sure I’m losing anything. I can’t say I feel much grieving for him, but I
may be pining for what he was supposed to symbolize for me, if that makes any sense.
What I wanted to have happen but didn’t. He was a disappointment . . . well, worse than
that . . . but with the loss of him came the collapse of an expectation. I’ve sort talked
myself into thinking along those lines, even though I can’t say whether or not this is
wise. That’s what you guys are supposed to tell me, right?”
---“A Freudian would tell you very little or nothing at all. In some mysterious way
you’re supposed to talk your way into what you don’t understand. You seem to be doing
that. Time’s up.”
---“Are you a Freudian? Long hours with patients, reconstructing their histories with the
hope they’ll come to terms with how they got to where they are? I’ve argued a few cases
where forensics psychiatrists have testified along these lines. I confess it was never very
hard to pick such testimony to pieces. Pretty ‘iffy’ stuff.”
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---“Not really a Freudian, although his insights or, more precisely his influence, can be
admired. Like others of my generation I considered psychoanalysis and spent some
months in training, but I became more interested in pharmaceutical psychiatry and that
became my modus operandi for the period I was a practitioner. I’ve spent most of my
professional life in academic administration. My contribution lately to the field has been
to edit several volumes on aspects of mental health, in particular the pharmaceutical side
within the larger context of brain chemistry. I’m a pretty savvy editor, and that combined
with more administrating than anyone ought to take on has become my preoccupation
for too long. I remember a little, I read a lot and I know my limits. I’ve been away from
the therapy business for a long time.”
---“I doubt if Freud will play much of a role in this case. We haven’t time.”
A comment that makes us chuckle in unison, before she continues.
---“Like you, I’m on my way out after tomorrow. I'm not sure how long I’ll stay with the
case. I'm doing this as a favor to Scott who was the first person to hire me as an
associate out of law school and then who urged me to leave the law I thought I was
going to practice for the law I actually do practice, generally speaking criminal law. That
meant, though, my future at the firm where he was a partner was gone. But, he was right,
he lined me up with a new firm and we've remained friends ever since.”
---“Why may you leave the case? You seem rather crucial. I heard enough at the table to
know that you've uncovered information that nobody else had. Of course, I could read
something into Blister's prospects by your decision to leave the case, but I won’t”
---“Perhaps you should – it's evolving for me as for you,” she said with a wink.
---“As awful as it sounds I have to ask myself – even Dell verged on asking it – is Blister
worth fighting for? This morning the consensus was he's not in very deep – stupid to do
what he did but resolvable – but tonight he not only knew what was happening but also
helped to plan it every inch of the way. From the goose is silly to the goose is cooked.”
---“For me it's just a case. Not being a friend, not even an acquaintance, keeps me
focused on the points of law, etc. But, remember cooking a goose takes a while.”
---“Well said, counselor. The fact is he screwed up because he thought he could get away
with it. That evokes different reactions from he screwed up because he didn’t have a
clue. Again, the question, is it worth the effort?”
---“For tomorrow, probably, after that . . . .may I change the topic that I’m actually
responsible for dragging out?”
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She pauses before continuing, as the expression on her face – a beautiful face . . .
elongated and sculptured rather than round – turns mischievous.
---“You had a longish marriage, but you've also been free a while. So, should I ask about
the single life?”
---“Hell, worse than anything Dante ever envisioned. The only salvation – excuse the
pun – is that it's less boring than a marriage made in Heaven.”
---“You know, I'm devout and may be offended . . . .”
---“I’ll take my chances,” I say without giving any ground. “How long have you been on
your own?”
---“Hard to say. I’ve always traveled a lot so I’ve spend lots of evenings alone in hotels.
For a while I had a place to come home to with husband, furniture, view – you know
what I mean – but it doesn’t feel that way any longer and hasn’t for ages. It was a brief
respite from what had been a young-adult life on the road. A Kerouac legal-eagle. I like
to tell myself I’m more content if I just keep traveling and living out of hotel rooms.
Don’t believe it, though.”
---“You’re separated but not divorced, and you’re still in what was your marriage
home?” I ask.
---“Yes, except it has become a place to drop my bag, do a laundry and stare at the view
for therapy. I don’t think I want it any longer, but I’m not sure. What about your
divorce? I assume you had property?”
---“We did. No warfare, though. It was mine by default. I stayed a while and then sold it.
For nearly 20 years a condo in central city I like very much has been home. It sounds as
if you’re ready to exchange hotel rooms for Manhattan views?”
---“Exiting this marriage has been hard in part because of the place. My connection to it
is complicated, and I’m having trouble figuring out if it’s the place or the complications
about the place that make me want to abandon it. You Freudians must have a name for
that? My feelings can’t be unique.”
---“House envy . . . .”
---“A kissin’ cousin of penis envy, I suppose,” she shoots back.
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---“Oh, if it were that simple. So, you have a house you may not want in a marriage you
can’t exit. You may be creating a new syndrome.”
---“Trailblazing is what I do when I’m not thinking how dumb this all is. A skilled
lawyer stuck in some post-relationship warp makes no sense.”
---“Au contraire. Relationship messiness wraps its tentacles around us in so many ways,
if we try to unwind one way we simply rewind another way.”
---“What I like about you guys – reassurance surrounded by mockery and cynicism.”
Laugh we do. Her expression becomes serious again.
---“Now that he’s left and I’m trying to leave I don’t find the sense of relief I’d expected.
At the very least it’s slow to happen. I've been 'on-my-own' most of my life. I know how
to call a plumber and make out a grocery list . . . that’s not what I’m struggling with. It’s
something new and different. It's trying to bury myself in my work, which I have often
managed, and not being able to. It makes me testy, and for the first time, as long as I can
remember, wobbly. Not being able to bury myself in work means I have time on my
hands, and I hate to think that I'm throwing it away. It feels that way. I've had suitors, but
no one with whom I felt comfortable. I spend a lot of time thinking about where I've
been and where I'm going, and it's all so unrewarding.”
---“I suspect it happens to all of us. Reorienting may be hardest in relationships people
are anxious to flee as quickly as possible. I made more missteps than someone in my
position should have. I was faithful in my marriage, even though I met women who
could have made me unfaithful. But, once free, I didn’t know how to start social
networking, being pretty much a loner, so I ended up sitting in a lot of cafés and writing
a lot of pages in my journal. It turns out I actually got a lot of work done, even though I
wasn’t aware that was happening. I've always been able to make friends, but I've never
been very good at cultivating friendship once made. In time, not very long either, I was
feeling pretty comfortable with the new life, but it was more of a loner's life than I had
assumed it would be. I learned to appreciate the life I was creating even with the
missteps. I haven’t looked back very much, if at all. The sad thing is I like who I am and
what I can do, and if I don’t get pissed off or jerked around I'm about as content as I can
imagine. I'm not sure what it is that one has to find or avoid, but there may be a path
hidden in all of us that has possibilities.”
---“So, how is it that we’re back on the topic I tried to change a few minutes ago? Is this
why we’re all so screwed up? Our libido, our ego, our psyche . . . all conspire to keep
our conversations focused on how screwed up we are? Do you think I should do the
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counseling thing? Did you, as a professional, elect counseling? We tried joint
counseling, and it got worse.”
---“Likewise for us. Joint-counseling sounds good and may work for some, but in our
case and many others working through things with two troubled personalities is full of
pitfalls. That is a personal observation, not a professional one. I can’t recall any stats at
the moment. After the failure of joint therapy, we both knew the marriage was doomed. I
think we knew before couples therapy, which lasted less than a month. As shitty as it
may feel, we often know when the jig is up, and for me, at least, couples therapy simply
reinforced that. I did have a few long conversations post-divorce with several colleagues
I respect, but beyond that no formal counseling. The conversations helped me to come to
terms with what is a common barrier in dissolving relationships, namely to unlock
oneself from one's mate, spouse, partner – the one you've been living with, arguing with,
dressing in front, watching with humor or fear or disgust – all those hours together can
lock in in ways you're unaware of. Like others, I needed some nudging to get unlocked.
Once nudged, I was moving on my own, and within months I felt miles away from my
failed marriage. It helped, I think, that I never saw her again. Some correspondence, and
a phone call or two, but that was it. I had some regrets, of course, but I had more
curiosity and, importantly, more enthusiasm about the future. The future has its own
traps, I discovered, but once I could put the marriage behind me, I was marching ahead.
Your case is different in that there is emotional distance but not yet physical distance.
And, of course, you’re still trying to sort out the tangle . . . that can be unsettling at
times. I suppose the answer to your question is how locked in do you feel and how
uneasy do you feel about the future?”
I’m trying to talk as if we were friends, old friends, comparing our lives or the troubles
in our lives, talking the way we would over drinks late at night, as we are doing, except
we are aren’t old friends. Having met Natalia three hours ago, hoping we can become
buddies – she’s a very attractive woman – and not wanting to be her doctor, I’m trying to
make sure that my comments and queries sound more like common sense, common
knowledge, than professional analysis, and that we, like many others in the midst of
ending their marriages, share similar doubts and fears that we learn how to navigate
without the need for extensive counseling. I’m curious about the details of her life rather
the specifics of her marriage and divorce, but she may want to hear more from a
therapeutic angle than I want to offer. I sense some deep stirrings, but I’m hardly in a
position to do more than maintain a superficial approach. It’s becoming a hard line to
walk.
---“I haven’t felt locked into marriage for a long time. A dead end. Perhaps, we should
have known we were different personalities, although we share a similar trait – don’t
tread on me. We got on each other's nerves a lot. Even when we tried not to get on each
other's nerves, we did even more. On another level, though, I found myself locked into a
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family, and that's wearing me out. And, it makes the future fuzzy. I have no intention of
going back, but I haven’t figured out how to go forward. That's where I am right now.”
---“Your fields of law are different?” I ask in an effort to keep the conversation away
from too much probing of mental states.
---“Yes, his is real estate and stuff like that. That's what his family does, either as agents
or lawyers, and when I refused to join the team, as all the other spouses had, I got a few
black marks that just kept growing. Finally, I said no more family doings for me since
I'm not welcome. Hard for a Jewish girl to try to do, even though I'm non-observant, but
impossible for an observant Jewish boy whose family was within spitting distance of a
temple from where we lived. I don’t know if I intentionally meant to rock the ark, but I
did, and when I wouldn’t back off and after months of arguing, he moved out. Then, I
said time to end this once and for all. But, I haven’t, have I?”
---“You haven’t yet, but you may be on the verge?”
---“Yes, but it's an odd story. When I told him I was opting out, he said he would sell me
the apartment. I said no thanks. It turns out he didn’t own it either. It belonged to the real
estate arm of his family, but the economic downturn had pushed them to the verge of
bankruptcy, and the offer to sell it to me, at an attractive price, was an attempt to raise
cash to stave off bankruptcy. He then sued me for ten years of past rent plus interest. We
had always kept separate accounts, and for most of the years we were generous with
each other. But, I never paid any rent nor was I asked to. My salary with bonuses was
considerably larger than his, and I just carefully socked away what I didn’t spend. My
assets have become the bone of contention, even though there's a pre-nup stating except
for household and miscellaneous expenses finances will be kept separate with no claim
by either party. When he signed, he joked he was protecting his grand fortune, the one he
had inherited and the one he would create . . . well, as luck would have it, neither
existed. I’ll probably end up feeling sorry for him and hand something over, but not
yet.”
---“Everyone fights over money except me. I walked away from a buyout or a bribe,
however you want to describe it. Incidentally, Blister didn’t.”
---“I know, and that's only part of his story.”
I can sense that this conversation is shifting in a different direction.
---“You know more than I. I've never asked, and I've never been told. I've almost no
curiosity about the melodrama of money, in my case or in Blister’s case . . . .
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---“And mine?”
---“To be honest, I have a general curiosity how you got to where you are. The money
part . . . well . . . you may feel stuck but you’re not impoverished, and your ex feels
vengeful but whatever his feelings you will probably avoid being impoverished. It’s hard
for me envision you being stuck for long. That’s my $10-per-hour-pop-psych session.”
---“How different will it be from your $100-per-hour session? Maybe, I should sign up
just to see? Is there a pill yet for getting unstuck, if, in fact, that’s my plight?”
---“Working on it. Another week or two.”
---“Stuck is how I feel. Your antenna are working. I can make it sound that way. I've not
had much luck with men, I have no interest in women, and deep down inside I don’t
think I want to live alone . . . .”
She leans toward, put both hands around her glass and turns silent with her eyes fixed on
the glass. She is not without vulnerability. After a few seconds I touch her arm and say
quietly, “Why not give it a shot.” I stop there.
After a few more seconds, she swivels toward me and with glassy eyes on top of a smile
she speaks quietly, “I think I may.”
Her cell goes off, and the evening, I know, is coming to and. She studies the screen, and
I hear with some vehemence, “Shit.” I leave a few bills under my glass, and we walk to
the elevator. A crowd is waiting to board, I bid her goodnight at my floor and walk
slowly to my room, not the evening I’d expected.
My cell is beeping when I awake. No dreams to record, I think, as I check the message
box. A message from Dell with instructions about the morning. I have a couple of hours,
so I shower and shave and take the stairs down to the café for breakfast. The croissants
are good, and the coffee not bad but not Peet's and the city is, I can see, ablaze in
sunlight. I check through my message box again with same results, nothing very
important. I try not to think about Natalia, but there I am doing exactly what I’m telling
myself not to do. My life has been romantically trouble-free for the last year, and I know
why it’s been trouble-free. I finish my coffee, pay my bill and after returning to my room
to pack my things for a later departure, I’m ready to walk to the courthouse. I take in the
sunlight and make my mind as empty as possible. When I arrive at the courthouse, I pass
through security without incident, and as I stroll through the rotunda I hear my name. I
glance to my left, and there is Natalia walking toward me.
---“Good morning,” she says, “I have a feeling you’re more rested than I am.”
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Ravishing is how she appears, but that is not a state of mind I should be encouraging.
---“I am rested, thank you. Good morning to you, and I'm sorry I can’t share my
restedness with you.”
---“I am too,” she said laughing. “Thanks for the evening. I owe you one. Now, I have to
run. Don’t expect much this morning, and there may be another hearing this afternoon. I
think we'll be back in the city tonight. By the way, I wanted to tell you this last night but
we got off on another track . . . .” She put her hand on my arm and said, “I know
something about Sarah, and eventually I will share it. Can you live with that. I would
feel guilty if I didn’t tell you this, even though I can’t tell you what . . . .”
---“My God, the Sarah I know? Holy shit. I had no idea.”
---“Yes, the Sarah you know. Dell filled me in.”
---“You must know that part of the reason I'm here has to do with her, although I’m
having trouble making much sense out of it. When Dell asked me to join him, he told me
briefly about Sarah’s connection. That's where we left it, and I've not brought it up since.
I'm curious, and yet I may prefer to leave things tucked away where they have been for a
while.”
---“We’ll talk, and I promise, if you prefer to leave her tucked away, that’s fine by me. I
just think you need to know the full extent of my connection with her. That’s all.”
She smiles, nods, pats my arm and kisses my cheek, carried out almost as if a single
motion. Without a word she walks toward the door of the lawyers’ quarters. I walk to the
entrance to the courtroom and join a line not more than six or eight deep. After taking
my seat, in the same vicinity as yesterday, I look around to see if I recognize anyone,
and I don’t.
What is this triangle of Sarah, Blister and Natalia? Do I really want to know. I’m safe to
assume it’s partly legal, but from how Natalia put it, I sense it does not end at a legal
nexus. Dell had very little inside information about Sarah, and if I were to talk to Blister,
I doubt if he has much more, but Natalia, I’m sure, not only has information but knows
Sarah. Why do I think that on the basis of a few words? It was how she said it. I barely
know Natalia, but I’m confident that she will do as she says – tell me as much or as little
as I want to know. I do not sense that she’s playing games, but then . . . I barely know
her.
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Sitting here, as the courtroom fills, I feel foreboding combined with not knowing, which
may be the source of the foreboding. An innocent or naïve Blister of yesterday has been
replaced with a Blister up to his nose in fraud and dishonesty. As of two days ago I
hadn’t much thought about Blister in years and never Blister and Sarah in the same
sentence. Suddenly, a drama I’d never expected with a cast of characters I barely know.
And what about the people surrounding me, I’m sitting among? Do they know the play
and the actors? Did they help to write it? Could they be in the cast? They lack the
animated anger you’d expect from victims. So, why are they here? Nothing more than
curiosity? Are they equally curious about me? Curiosity does not explain why I’m here.
I’m connected in several ways, to the defendant, the counsels’ table, the accuser. If not
just curiosity, how are they connected? If we started conferring with, talking to each
other, what would be revealed to all that is not now known by all? Would we transform
ourselves into Macbeth chorus, now silent but potentially powerful prognosticators . . .
with our poisoned entrails, eyes of newts, toes of frogs . . . ready to cant in union
“Double, double, toil and trouble . . . bubble, bubble, toil and trouble”. If I stood and
left, I could end my part in the drama. At least, I could negotiate my exit. If I stay, as I
know I will do, I will become more deeply immersed in matters that can only alter the
course ahead of me that I’d expected to follow. Blister, his crime and his fate, pushes me
out, the opposite of what would be called humane, but Sarah, her memory and her
presence, hold me in, centrifugal over the centripetal.
Just then without any lawyers at their respective tables and no defendant in sight the
door to the judge's chambers opens and an individual, not the judge, enters the
courtroom and announces proceedings have been delayed indefinitely. He turns and
disappears behind the door he’d just walked through. It took no more than a few seconds
to end this evolving charade. The chorus will remain silent.
In the hallway I see no sign of Dell, Marge or Natalia nor anyone else. I am alone and
decide that is a sign to get out, and I do. Within 30 minutes I’m standing at the desk of
the hotel, reading a handwritten note dictated by phone from Dell to the front desk. It
instructs me, as I’d expected, to head back to the city without them. The concierge has
been informed to admit me to their apartment, if I want to spend the night in the city
instead of heading home. My first-class flight is for late afternoon, and the ticket can be
claimed at the airport. That is the message . . . no explanations, no future plans, no goodbyes. I am not expected to stick around, and on that score I am relieved.
Has Dell arranged for my escape, for the drama to end, as many do, without resolution. I
know not much more upon leaving than I knew upon arriving. What I do know,
however, will weigh on my mind. That’s the unexpected. It will take its toll. I open my
cell to call the airline to see if I can fly straight home, and after some minutes of
pressing this number, that number, I reach a person who arranges for a direct flight. The
doorman, with tip in hand, hails me a cab and two hours later I’m ready to board, not a
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word from the world I’m leaving. Will the story I’m opening be as unexpected as the
story I’m finishing?VII
On the flight I dozed off almost immediately, and when I awoke, the plane was just
landing. Once in the terminal I turned on my cell to be confronted with an avalanche of
messages. The text message that caught my eye right away was from Natalia – it was
either garbled or in a code I couldn’t read. I decided to ignore all messages until I got
home and headed for the exit. I hailed a cab, and an hour later, after an absence of
several days, I opened the sliding glass door to admit the city and sat in near darkness
with a glass of Haute-Plantey Cab. I did not want to think, recapitulate, analyze or
anticipate. Dark-neural-energy time, for what it was worth. My way of disconnecting,
no, recovering, from a world created and governed by others.
After I had finished the first glass, I turned my cell back on and also poured a second
half glass of the Cab. Before scrolling through the messages, I looked at Natalia’s
undecipherable message again but the wine, the door, the dark, none of this helped me to
decipher it. I began to scroll. Nothing from Dell or Marge. but then I ran across an
unfamiliar name among Gmails. I opened it to find a note from a person whose name I
did not recognize. She apologized for intruding, hoped I remembered her even though
she had a new last name by marriage and explained after Googling me she found an
email address. She had a matter of importance to tell me about, if I would take the time
to call at the number she listed. And, that was it, and as I looked at the screen and sipped
my wine, I had no recollection of her or a clue as to what she could possibly be
referring. My memory machine tried to kick in – a friend of Sarah’s perhaps? – but
nothing. I did not call. In fact, I erased the number. I decided I didn’t know her or, as I
headed for the bedroom, having left most of the messages unread, I didn’t want to know
her. These past few days had made me jittery about memories and the past that they
commanded into the present. I had dual and contradictory impulses . . . a reconciliation
between me and Sarah through the magic of a widening circle of unrelated people was
accompanied by a hammering of wildly absurd and correspondingly scary unsteadiness.
In the bedroom I set my cell on vibrate and climbed into bed. In my late life I could fall
asleep no matter the baggage I was carrying around within minutes, and it must have
worked again because the next thing I remember was being awakened by my vibrating
phone. It was well past ten the next morning.
I had a rule not to check my vibrating cell (or to turn on my computer) before Peet's had
been prepared and poured. No reason to violate the rule this morning. When my press
was ready and my mug filed, I began to scroll through the news headlines on my phone
when my eye caught Further Arrests . . . . These were arrests, I discovered, that had
postponed the hearing yesterday, and while the notice was short, it provided information
I had not heard before. Although initiated by the SEC, the charges against all including
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Blister were criminal, not civil. They were serious, and they involved the two hedge
funds, misrepresentations to investors, misappropriations of their funds and a string of
other charges. The notice also described Blister's pedigree, and that, I thought, would not
please the Patriarch. The Wall Street thieves were at it again, and Blister whose father
played the game fairly straight had abused his inheritance. He joined the crowd with
gimmicks rather than scruples. Money entered the front door, some of it being put to
work in legitimate accounts but most of it headed out the back door into some
unpublicized schemes to make a ton of money for the principles rather than the investors
whose money was at stake. It was free money to them, but not even free money could
prevent bad bets. As the world economy belly-flopped, more of their bets went sour and
payouts ceased. These guys are arrogant but not smart.
As I leaned back in my chair and sipped my Peet's, the thought occurred to me that the
army of attorneys was not a happenstance. They had connections, especially Natalia, but
I had no idea what they were. Naïve, stupid, unknowing, none of these attributes carried
much weight given yesterday’s arrests. Blister's local attorney may have been illinformed at the very least and grossly deceived at the very worst, but the team sent in by
the Patriarch was not. A stupid act with no criminal intent, the first diagnosis, seemed
utterly foolish now. Why did Scott pull Natalia into the case? Past friendship made no
sense in a case like this. Did it matter if I never found out, I asked my self, as I gathered
up my bag on wheels to run some errands, and I said out loud to no one,
---“No.” Then, I whispered, “We’ll see.”
As I walked to Small Mall, I remembered I had an even more puzzling dream. It may be
too late to enter it into my journal. It’s gotten pretty fuzzy since I woke up. Details have
faded, but what I can recall right now is that a woman was lying on a man – possibly me
– but I also seem to be observing. The quantum angle of my dreams – two places at
once. She wore stylish black leotards and spiked heels, and the leotards had a hole for
his penis that was fully engaged, but most amazing was her upper half was squeezed like
the top of a fig, and yet they were lavishly kissing as if she was a normal person;
perhaps she was to him but not to the viewer; one and the same, kisser and viewer,
except in the dream.
---“Was it a dream about fucking, figs or foolishness,” I asked myself as I walked
through entrance of Small Mall and came face to face with the owner and my friend,
Gino.
---“Dr G, as usual, your morning festival at Small Mall. We wouldn’t survive without
you.”
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We embraced, turned and walked toward the butcher shop arm-in-arm. The mall was
busy, but it was almost always busy.
---“So, standing at the door, were you counting customers and dreaming profits, away
from your usual post of command?”
---“Just clearing the way for you. New policy for valuable customers – no surprises, set
routines, roped off from the rabble, quibbling forbidden, status reaffirmed. You’re the
first. How are we doing?”
I could not help but let out a loud hoot. This guy was so smart and articulate, and on this
Saturday morning after days away trying to figure out Hell a genuine pleasure to banter
with.
---“At long last I feel the elevation I have always deserved. Rich and powerful must be
pampered. Now, where's your apron? I insist!” as we entered his Butcher Shop,
welcomed by a spring-green neon.
---“Before your ego eats you alive, whatever's on your calendar Sunday night, scratch it.
I'm cooking, and you’re coming.”
---“If you’re cooking, I hope we're also drinking. What can I bring? A dumb question.
The gift guests usually buy for hosts would have to be bought in that shop with the
burgundy-red neon straight ahead. Like buying you what you already own. I withdraw
the question. You’ll have to wait. . . .”
---“And see? Worth the wait, my Dear Doctor. Once collected, scanned and approved at
the door, you’ll be admitted.”
---“What one should not expect from the city’s grand négociant. A blemished reputation,
has consequences. I may test your admittance policy just to see what will happen. Within
your citadel, I do have allies.
---“They’ve been barred. Your on your own. 7 PM, and you are never late. And let me
add, unreservedly, the fillet I will not be serving but you will be buying for yourself . . .
extraordinary.”
---“Why do I keep trying to make these decisions for myself . . . I'm outmatched,
outwitted and outsized.”
And, there it was, butchered on the spot by the owner himself and wrapped in the most
exquisite yellow and black paper imaginable. I added a few other things, paid the bill,
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which I noticed had been discounted, and bid Gino and the staff adieu to which they all
answered almost in unison, having practiced for some years, to my adieus,
---“Caio.”
The Small Mall was Gino's creation. He owned five of them in various mid-size cities,
usually in the heart of the city surrounded by apartments and condos, some of which he
may also own. In some cases he had spent a year or two scouting for the best location.
Sometimes he saved and remodeled a building, other times he razed and built his own.
All the commercial buildings had residences above. The idea of the Small Mall was both
simple and not so simple. Each was a large space divided into various retail businesses,
all of which Gino owned. Each mall had a butcher shop, a wine store that had shelves of
books and patrons who sat and conversed and a boutique grocery where a gourmand
could buy almost anything he needed. After that, no rules, whatever Gino fancied to try.
He fully intended to assign a space to a business that opened with an inventory of such
and such and then to close once the inventory was sold or perhaps after it had been sold,
refilled and sold again. Some businesses were so transitory they’d be gone after a month
or two. The space would then be filled by something different, and the cycle would start
all over.
Not all the malls had the same array of businesses because he tried to tailor them to his
neighborhood and clientèle. A recent installation in some malls (not here) were knitting
stores because Gino observed that women were sitting on benches and at table inside the
malls, knitting and talking. He bought a warehouse full of exotic yarns and expensive
needles, and it was entirely possible once the warehouse was cleaned out the knitting
store would be replaced with something else. He also figured out a way to offer his
knitting patrons food and drink – roving skaters pushing Popsicle-like carts – so they
didn’t have to interrupt what they were doing. When I asked him about this idea, he said
I'm intrigued when people are doing, talking and eating simultaneously
He was a genius at finding warehouses in need of distribution and choosing which ones
to distribute, and then building a business, albeit transitory, around them. In addition, he
owned an array of farms (with his family) that supplied some of the meat and produce.
He was born and raised on a farm where his parents still lived and worked. Gino
graduated from an ivy-league school with majors in philosophy and math. He never
wanted to be an academic or a writer. He was doing what he had first thought about
doing when he was working on his dad's farm. And, he's made money, piles of it, and
was still inventing new businesses. People would complain about the closing or
replacing of businesses that they were fond of patronizing, and he would reply calmly,
seriously but with an infectious smile,
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---“I can’t run a business that bores me. You'll like the new businesses.” And, they
usually did.
I headed home with my cart-bag full and arrived just in time for the start of the opera,
Jules Massenet's Manon.
I decided to put a bottle of champagne on ice for after the opera. I would bake the filet
and serve it with a salad and a baguette. Since I had no plans for the evening . . .
something I was glad for . . . a quiet evening after a hectic week . . . I would finish off
the day with some champagne, paté and fresh strawberries. Champagne and strawberries
always reminded me of the lively discussion I had some years ago with my landlords
and friends in Paris. We were drinking a splendid champagne from Chateau DejardinLibera and consuming what Chantal had laid before us when Jean-Jacques said he knew
that raspberries were regarded as the fruit of royalty but in France strawberries were held
more highly than raspberries. I said I still thought of raspberries as the fruit of royalty,
but these strawberries were royal and delicious I could change my mind. From southern
France, he informed me, strawberries known as gariguettes, and they had no equal. I
remember nodding enthusiastically in agreement, as Chantal with a smile but no
comment piled my dish high with the remaining berries.
Jean-Jacque looked sad and bewildered.
---“Le mien? Ma cherie?”
---“Vous oubliez, mon cher. L'ordre du médecin. Mangez moins!”
---“Jamais dans l'histoire humaine pourrait un Français mangent moins avec les
gariguettes en face de lui. Zoot alors.”
It was another epicurean moment with Jean-Jacques and Chantal never to be forgotten. I
could not replicate the joys of the tastes and the conversations of those times this night –
no Dejardin-Libera, no gariguettes, no Jean-Jacques and Chantal – but I was going to
enjoy the food and drink in its own right.
Shortly after the end of the opera my cell went off. A 212 area code and then the name of
Natalia, whose number I had added to my phone yesterday.
---“Hi,” I said, adding, “Not a call I expected. May I pour some champagne for you?”
---“Oh, I wish, that's funny – do you often read women's minds?” she asked.
---“Only when it serves my purpose . . . .”
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---“And that would be?”
---“Solidarity of all champagnians . . . .”
---“Do you always make up words to go with your made-up stories?”
---“Caught with my . . . my . . . my champagne uncorked . . . how are you and where are
you? I got your message, but frankly I wasn’t sure what it was about. Why am I lost?”
---“Because I'm a lousy texter and decided a call was better than more texting. How am
I? Never ask a Jewish gal how she is. OK, I've been better, and it's an airport on my way
back to the city. Not the best couple of days in my legal or personal life, except for an
unexpected interlude at a bar with a guy I wish I’d known before, and then on top of that
the weather’s turned crappy. And you? Obviously living it up with Mr Bubbly. I hope
I'm not the unwanted outsider?”
---“I suppose the reason for Mr. Bubbly is . . . you can guess. You've been playing the
legal game since I left. Is it as bad as I want to declare it to be without knowing all facts?
The TV reports added some spice.”
---“Aha, 'fraid so.”
---“May I be nosy and ask if you were brought into the case by Scott because you’re in
the know?”
---“Not far off. But we'll leave it at that. It's more complicated than you want to know
about. I told Scott this was my final curtain call, and here I am sitting in an airport
instead of drinking champagne to celebrate my final curtain.”
---“So the case is off-limits?”
---“Off-limits.”
---“The champagne will appreciate that.”
---“As I knew it would.”
Natalia excused herself to deal with an incoming call. Within seconds she was back, and
she asked,
---“Let me be my blunt self – when are you coming to New York?”
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---“No plans, but I can make plans. I'm good at making them, fall short at executing.”
---“OK, I might . . . being the aggressive princess I am . . . I might be sending you some
ideas. Let me find out what's waiting for me in the city, and then I’ll be in touch. Oops,
you’re my lucky charm. They just posted departure in forty-five minutes.”
---“My pleasure – be safe . . . .” and I thought we were hanging up, when she said:
---“About Sarah. Here's what I promised. I know Sarah, I know her quite well, she's
married to a cousin. I talked to her last night. I told her I’d met you, dined and drank
with you and enjoyed your company. She has changed since you knew her, but old
flames do not die easily. Her silence told me that . . . .”
More silence.
---“Are we caught in degrees-of-separation bedevilment?” I asked. I almost wanted to
cry. My pining for Sarah had diminished, but when it would roar back, as it did on this
occasion, I feared I could be consumed by it.
---“Look, Sarah knows where you live, what you've been doing – you are, as I
discovered and I'm sure she has too, although she's never said a word, all over the
goddamn web – and doesn’t know what to do about what's happened and hasn’t known
for a decade. Is my ‘succinctity’ clear? I can make up words too.”
---“You would never bore a jury, believe me. In one sentence, summation complete!”
---“We both agreed you are a sweet guy – stay cool, now – but you need to understand I
know about Sarah’s life because she is my ‘cousin-in-law’ in a family that never shuts
up, but I do not know how she feels about the old geezer she spent time with years ago. I
can speculate, but I won’t. That won’t help you – I can also play psychiatrist – and that
wouldn’t be fair to Sarah. The good news is there is more I can tell you, if you want to
hear.”
---“Dealing with both lawyer and psychiatrist is forbidding. What you say sounds fair.
Tell me what you can, and I’ll speculate about the rest. I’ve been doing that for years.
May I ask, though, how she's involved with Blister?”
---“That I can answer because it is a part of the trial record. Both simple and not so
simple to explain. I'm not sure the information Dell or Scott had was quite accurate. I
knew something about this case before Scott called me because of Sarah. Do you know
where she lives and what she does?”
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---“Sort of, I think, although I haven’t recently checked the web. Unlike me, thank you,
she's not all over the web. Even after Dell told me about her and Blister, I didn’t make an
effort to check her out. So I may be operating in the dark.”
---“You probably are more than you realize. You know she's married, right?”
---“What I found out a year or so ago was she had a new handle – Ross, right?”
---“Correct. Evan Ross is my first cousin. I've become closer to Sarah than I ever was to
Evan. This is a big Jewish family, mainly West Coast, and Evan and I have been doing
battle with each other since I can remember. He too is a lawyer, and we're both Stanford
Law. His father . . . my uncle . . . another brother/uncle, and my Father, all lawyers, have
casino interests in California and Nevada and beyond. Like me, Evan has stayed out of
the family business – are you sitting down? – and they live at the big lakeside family
estate on Lake Tahoe . . . .”
---”Holy shit, not Lake Tahoe? I . . . .”
---“You ski there. In the last few days I learned that directly from your web page, but
after I read your 'Tribute to Sarah’, I realized I’d learned what was in that tribute
indirectly through a conversation with Sarah months earlier. No names were allowed in
that conversation . . . girl rules.”
---“I'm going to need a visual to keep track of all this . . . and some Kleenex.”
---“Ha-Ha – Let me fill you in as much as I can, while standing in line. Evan and Sarah
manage their lives at a distance from my family and that's a good thing, believe me. You
know about Sarah's commitment to abandoned or abused animals, but the foundation
with which she's connected was not, as Dell may have told you, founded or financed by
her or Evan. It's a national registry with affiliated clinics around the country. Sarah is a
member of the board, makes a substantial contribution each year plus raising money
among her humble friends or among their rich friends and, until this shit hit the fan, she
headed up the investment committee.”
---“Why in the world the investment committee? She's smart, but is that her interest?” I
broke in.
---“Good question. She's a trooper when it comes to animals, and the committee needed
help. She did not authorize the investment with Blister, and between you and me the
previous chair who did may be in some hot water. He knew the schmucks who were just
arrested and he may have known Blister through them. He’s not saying, yet. The
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registry's attorney opened the probe, and after he informed Sarah and the board a
complaint was filed with the SEC. Sarah then stepped down because she felt unqualified
to deal with this prior stuff. She's interested in saving animals, not tracking down
criminals, unless they’re abusing animals. She’s the owner of an Incline Village vet
clinic, and it’s affiliated with the registry. She does pro bono most of the time and leaves
the daily clinic operation in the hands of her staff. She’s hired good people. She and
Evan don’t need any more money. She hates the social and business world she's been
thrown into, although she knew what was coming when she got married. She’s still the
outdoor person you know, a life that Tahoe encourages. Evan’s perfectly comfortable
with that. Besides being more competitive than anyone I know except me, Evan has a
solid work ethic. I was in Tahoe for a family gathering, and Sarah and I sneaked off for a
drink and dinner in Tahoe City because the pressure was getting to her. I learned about
the geezer she skied with, drank coffee with, hung out with more than a decade ago back
East and who also skied at Tahoe. And when I checked your web site . . . one plus one
equals YOU.”
---“How did you ever get on the subject of skiing with the geezer, to use your
euphemism that should make cry foul."
---“you're too nice to cry foul. I was coming to that. You started skiing late?”
---“Indeed, I did, and if I hadn’t met Sarah, I would've quit. But, I repeat . . . since
you've read the tribute . . . .”
---“Tell me in your words.”
---“Well, I was on leave and unattached. I was still the professor, not the administrator I
would become. I took up temporary residence at another university to be closer to a
colleague with whom I was finishing a book. The divorce was very recent, and I thought
being away for a while would be healthy. I'm a long-time weight-lifter and I joined a
gym near my short-term apartment. Sarah taught aerobics. She had graduated from the
local university several years before and hadn’t yet gained admission to vet school. I had
also decided to try skiing and had signed up for lessons at Mt Tussey, a local ski resort
with a hill instead of a mountain. We met at the gym's water fountain, believe it or not,
and became friends.
---“When I told her about my skiing travail, she said met me at the mountain at a certain
time on a certain day. She also taught skiing at Mt Tussey. I did, she took me to the top,
and after I fell off the lift and she pulled me up, turned me in the downhill direction,
while giving me succinct instructions, and then gave me a push and shouted 'Ski'. I did
for a ways and then fell, and out of nowhere she showed up and threw out her hand to
pull me up, and pointing me downhill and once again shouting 'Ski'. Then, I realized she
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was skiing backwards in front of me. Of course, I was barely moving, but I was moving
in a downward direction. After I got to know her and spent some time skiing with her, I
came to the conclusion she didn’t ski on snow but on air. I reached the bottom – no more
than a few hundred feet – and we did it all over again several times, and each trip down
she added a few more technical details. A damn good teacher. She knew how to pace her
instructions, which were usually delivered in a few words like lean into or be aggressive.
After a couple of hours I was more or less skiing. That's how it started, and I can’t
imagine ever having ended up a Tahoe if I hadn’t first met Sarah. Of course, I didn’t
expect to fall in love with her, but that's another story.
---“Oh, an addendum. She also tried to teach me to ride a Harley, which I bought on the
spur of the moment . . . madly in love as I was and not responsible for what I did . . . and
there she failed. I never mastered the art of riding a two-wheeler that weighed two tons
through busy streets or even on the open road.”
---“Yes, she tells the same story but it’s much funnier. You didn’t include that in your
‘Tribute to Sarah’.”
---“Even I can be embarrassed by my failures. I don’t know how she made it funnier
except she was probably honest about how terrible I was. As cocky as I can be, that was
my ‘comeuppance’ moment. I deserved it. I was a klutz because I was afraid, deeply
afraid of that two-wheeled powerhouse, but I couldn’t show that to the woman I’d fallen
head-over-heels for, could I? The Muses took care of that. I was dumb enough to start
but smart enough to quit.”
---“What you describe about skiing, not the falling in-love part, is almost a carbon copy
of my experience with Sarah. I was a better skier than you, but Sarah took me to the top
of Northstar for an improvement lesson. Her ability to observe my form no matter where
she was . . . behind me, in front of me, beside me . . . and to shout such succinct
instructions was almost uncanny. Flashes of what was wrong and how to correct it must
be the result of having skied since she was a kid and, more importantly, skiing smartly.
The right words at the right moments. Never an overload. I’m not sure my skiing
improved, although I felt more comfortable after a few trips down the mountain with
her. That must count as some form of improvement.”
---“My experience exactly. By the end of the first session, never having skied down this
small, 400-foot slope without a dozen falls, I had overcome the wobble and uncertainty
and skied from top to bottom. We celebrated with ‘hugs on skis’ and a few high-fives.”
---“She's fun-loving and capable of craziness but with things like how to ski and what to
do with your pets she's doesn’t kid around. And, like you, I knew I had to listen and
obey. At the end of this dinner conversation about hapless males best forgotten, she also
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said this older gentleman – her word – unlike any of the other men we discussed still
remembered her birthday, always sent a card or left a message. I asked her if she and he
– not knowing at the time who he was – were lovers. She said no. That was the end of
the conversation, although I sensed – that detective in me again – it was far from closed
for her, almost as if she knew that he slash you were keeping tabs. Little did I expect to
meet the tab-keeper.”
I went mum, and after a few second Natalia said:
---“Have I said too much?”
---“Not at all. We were never lovers, but that didn’t stop me from falling in love with
her. I tried to persuade myself that this was some old-geezer's version of puppy love,
born out of loneliness. Since her vanishment – a word, incidentally– I've come to accept
the fact that I simply can’t explain what happened or didn’t happen between us. It
happened, I had to live with it and through it and, as so often is true in struggles like this
for most of us, we figure out what to do. I lost sleep and shed tears over it, but it didn’t
derail me.”
---“I'm not sure exactly how she feels – she was very circumspect, almost shy – but now
that I've heard your side I'm thinking she also trying to tuck this thing away. As I said,
when I told her last night, I felt the same quiet I just now felt with you. I approached it
very gingerly. Fate was her only comment. I’ll be in California in a few weeks, and I'm
going to let her bring up the subject or not. You may wish for something else, but I think
it's what I have to do.”
---“I agree. I'm not sure I could ever meet her face-to-face again. I've figured out how to
remember her – because I don’t want to forget – without any other expectation. She is a
part of my memory and really still a part of my life, but in a place where it's safe, if you
know what I'm getting at. I've found the mechanism for keeping her in and keeping her
at bay. The past few days have not been easy because she's back in the foreground, but I
haven’t yet broken down, as I used to.”
---“One more thing to complicate your life before I board and have to hang up. Before
the further arrests were announced on CNBC and elsewhere, I had learned that the guys
behind Blister are known to my family. They are high fliers in the casinos and
apparently in other ways. You'd be amazed how many well-known traders show up at
the tables every six weeks. When you hear on CNBC that so-and-so is off or just
returned, you can bet they've been lining my family's pockets.”
---“Aha, so I can use claw-backs from your family for the money I've lost because of the
shenanigans of America's over-paid, under-regulated whining financial elite?”
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---“Not a bad idea. Don’t publicize that or I’ll have to go back to work for them. That's
another reason I want out. It will be more manageable reading about it than arguing it.”
---“Trite as it sounds, greed knows no limits.”
---“Especially for Wall Streeters, who are very smart about thinking up new gimmicks
for spending and losing our money but are utterly clueless and generally unrepentant
about the consequences.”
---“Bankers, traders, financiers have been at the root of every major panic in America.
And now they are further encouraged by academics and pundits who talk their line –
we're be so much better off because of these new financial instruments – that is, until the
probabilities of their theories begin to work in the opposite direction.”
---“That's it, I'm signing off. I hope you can adjust to all the news. You’re a sweet guy,
and I'm sorry I have to be the one to lay all this past out of the present on you . . . .” Her
cell went dead.
As soon as I heard the click of her cell, I felt the tears beginning to cascade across my
cheeks. Emotional tears. They were good. A way to release the pressure that our knotted
emotions create. I was finally letting go. Weeks in which the knots grew tighter and
tighter until a trigger – in this case the reappearance of Sarah – broke them.
I paced when I talked on a phone or cell. Always had. I felt exhausted. Outside, it had
turned from dusk to dark, and I realized I hadn’t eaten since early in the opera. First, I
dried my eyes with Kleenex and then refilled my champagne glass. I loved these flutes
crafted by Alyssia Melka-Teichroew, a Hollander now living in the United States. Inside
Out Champagne she called them. The stem of the flute had no platform and was
enclosed inside an outer shell of glass. Inside Out was snazzy and humorous. I felt,
somehow, a closer connection to what was inside the flute when I drank from AM-T’s
creation.
I picked up my plate of goodies and walked to my chair by the sliding glass door that
allows me to watch night flow over the city. I love these views, and tonight the view
even with a pair of watery eyes was embracing. I sipped the champagne and slowly
worked my way through the vittles, as my Father used to call food, and nodded in the
direction of the Small Mall – right again, Gino. I was feeling less uneasy and more
wistful. Two ladies in my life, one barely known but present and the other too-well
known but past, and I wasn’t sure where I fit in the world that was being conjured up
around me. I knew, as I finished the berries and the champagne in my flute, and looked
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out over the city, I was glad I’d met Natalia, and at the same time I missed Sarah deeply.
Beyond that, I need not go at this moment.
Economists talk about asymmetrical information and its impact on market behavior and
the psychology of market behavior was becoming as big field, and right now I was
feeling caught in some sort of asymmetrical loop where I had much less information
than the other players. I knew I would never divulge to anyone the handful of love
letters from Sarah toward the end of our friendship. I had memorized their contents, and
I found myself at times repeating lines from them. I had always wanted our friendship to
become a romance, and as close as we got were her love letters that arrived out of the
blue. She wrote with genuine affection, more affection than I had ever known with any
other women including my ex, who seldom if ever said “I love you.” Sarah wrote about
qualities that made her long for my presence – qualities I didn’t know I had in such
abundance or were so visible to her.
What I knew even before the letters was that we could talk, we could walk, we could ski,
we could cook, almost effortlessly. In the end, all I knew was how deeply I was smitten
and how mysterious she remained. Once I refused to go to the gym or the mountain
because I couldn’t bear to see her and not take her in my arms in such a way that would
propel us to some other dimension. I never told her, and eventually I returned to both the
gym and the mountain. Except for the letters and a few unexpected comments, I never
knew how she felt. Even now after having this virtual reconnection I knew not much
more. Of course, when the veil fell it became permanent – I'm still in love and she's . . . I
don’t know. In an odd way, despite all my expertise I couldn’t explain how the
imponderable, Natalia made the whole business manageable. Had she become a buffer
between me and all my romantic yearnings – years’ worth – with a Sarah I’d made more
fiction than real and a Sarah I was now learning about. I was too tired to decide if this
was healthy or malevolent. I could end up in a worse place. I could also not go on
because the champagne was gone, and the bedroom beckoned.VIII
I woke up to the sound of rain hurtling against the window. I’d forgot to check the
forecast so I was surprised. My body felt rested but my mind still felt tired. All of the
degrees-of-separation stuff was taking some toll. As I lay in bed, trying to launch the
morning, I remembered I’d spent part, perhaps all, of night shifting back and forth
between what seemed like fantasies in wakefulness and dreams in sleep. Dream
therapists will say that when your dreams are filled with questions, you’re lost to
uncertainty, misdirection and even disillusionment. I was trying to recall some of the
questions – what did you dream last night, my Jungian colleagues would often asked me
teasingly since they knew my low regard for the great Swiss lost soul. Here I was asking
myself, like Jung.
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I remember questioning earlier whether Natalia really knew Sarah. That has been
answered. Sarah was married to her cousin. The same Sarah. I winced as I thought of
another question: Why was Natalia – a smart, sexy, sassy woman – so eager to fill me in
by drips and dribbles rather than just saying what she knew and leaving it at that? In my
awake hours I did not feel as if I were being manipulated or deceived, and yet my subconscience was apparently a doubter.
I was suddenly thinking of a Hoagy Carmichael song played by Bill Charlap and sung
by Tony Bennett with the line “What a fool I am/To think with my broken heart/I could
kiss the moon.” I came to terms with the loss of Sarah by letting the heartache run its
course. I had dealt with the phantom world of Sarah. I’d always given the temperamental
painter, whom I met for the first time shortly after Sarah had vanished, some credit for
helping me making the turn, but the painter and I were lovers and Sarah and I were not.
Different circumstances. The painter’s brazen qualities I missed – she lived in a dreamy
world that was unpredictable but often intriguing – but her mood swings and temper
tantrums I didn’t miss. She suppressed what happened between us and then blew up
when I tried to defend myself. “I barely knew you” were her words, and in a literal sense
that’s exactly how she knew me. I should have known better than to try to reconnect
with her. Did I really want to be back into ever-changing worlds? Apparently so. Her
remark pissed me off momentarily, and then I realized I had the completion of the circle
I needed.
What would have happened if Sarah and I had had a falling out, loud and vicious?
Would that have completed our circle? I couldn’t imagine it ever happening because the
circumstances were so different. I chuckled, as I recalled that she once told me she got
her way by pouting. I’d never seen her in that mode. That I never did was what I’d latch
unto to explain to myself the affection we had for each other. Was that just another
fantasy? Was it possible that we only knew each other on such a superficial scale that
pouting was unnecessary? Pouting was a well-known mechanism for protecting oneself.
Was it possible that our relationship was so fleeting that avoidance of and protection
from were never imperatives?
---“Do you think, my Good Doctor, you’ve pushed the level of this relationship . . . You
and Your Sarah . . . beyond where it ever was or ever should be?” I said to myself for
only the walls to hear.
Of course, I didn’t; of course, I did. I knew that. That was always the way it was. Since I
never asked, since I never knew, I had to fill in the unknown, close up the gaps, lay out
the story. What I never knew was how far she had pushed it? On that score, Natalia,
seemingly quite real in this odd multilayered world, had said nothing directly, explicitly
yet to help to answer that question. On the other hand, the Sarah she described was the
Sarah I knew. On certain matters . . . utterly mum. I’d never tried to pry anything out of
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her. It felt rude and wrong. In my own way I became mum too. Our times together had
certain boundaries we’d never discussed but both knew.
With the painter, just the opposite. The narrative I’ve created with the painter was
entirely different. It was more jagged, harder to smooth out than the narrative I’d created
with Sarah. I knew more about the painter. We had expressed affection toward each
other, no matter how hard she's tried to erase it. I knew more about her inner life than I
knew about Sarah’s. That knowing, tumultuous as it was at times, made it easier to make
her a part of my past, not to let her intrude into my present or future. Her surface and her
depth were co-joined and constantly visible. I never figured out how to navigate them.
That unsolved mystery may have been what kept me in the turmoil for as long as I was
and may also have accounted for my attempt to reconnect. Her final injunction put the
whole matter with all its twists and turns to rest. She and I were finished, although if she
walked into this room right now I’d say all the wrong things. I was lucky. Her walking
into this room did not even make a good story line.
Ironically, I felt more affection for Sarah than I ever felt for the painter, who ever so
briefly was my lover, and yet, conversely, I knew more about the the painter’s feelings
than I knew about Sarah’s. If I had known more, would the memory of Sarah followed
the course it did? I don’t know. I may have found out what I wanted it to be; I may also
have found the opposite. The memory of Sarah in all its richness had survived because
even not knowing as much as I wanted to know I wanted to keep it alive. No such
ambivalence with the painter. I can still hear her final dictum. I had no doubt that despite
these new winds blowing across my romantic past, stirred up by the plight of a friend
from decades ago, I still might prefer to keep Sarah in the place and under the accord
that I had set up. I would revisit her in my imaginings. No further.
I was now fully awake. Since I’d canceled the New York Times – 7 bucks for very little
made me into an uncustomary miser – I’d tried to dedicate Sunday morning to cleaning
– a venture I hated more than Republicans. I could well afford to hire a service to clean
for me, but I never did – another one of those miserly moments. I could stand my own
dirt and dust, but I’d never managed to erase that voice from my upbringing –
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. So, periodically, out of fear that God’s wrath would
show up in the form of my mother’s ghostly figure, I would clean. Assigning Sunday
mornings to the task seemed like due penance for my neglect over the years of
connecting Cleanliness and Godliness. Except many Sundays passed without my
Electrolux ever being turned on or my Swiffer ever being swiffed around. I was
determined this morning, however, to be as penitential as possible.
Only after fixing my Peet's. After a few sips I violated my morning rule by calling up
Twitter on my cell. I used to have a FaceBook page but gave it up, feeling much more
connected than I ever wanted to, but I’d kept my Twitter page because it had that
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“disconnectedly-connected” feel. I followed a few and I had many more who followed
me, but except for a few professional colleagues and local friends, I knew virtually no
one on Twitter. I found some tweets interesting and even thoughtful. Occasionally, I
tweeted but this morning the task ahead of me hardly inspired any tweets. I was
connected to the networking world, but most of the time I remained disconnected. I had
no emails to respond to, and before I knew it, I’d drunk half a pot of Peet's, and I
couldn’t ignore my religious duty any longer.
Even with the noise of the Electrolux I was thinking about Sarah. I could be walking,
exercising, cooking, and suddenly she popped in, like a puppet descending. It wasn’t that
I could go to recent photographs of her or daily blogs by her to refuel my yearnings. I
hadn’t seen her face in six or seven years, touched her hand, read her sometimes messy,
sometimes neat handwriting, always in ink on yellow lined legal paper, or listened to her
indubitable imperative, Reconsider! All the images I had stored away were from before
the loss of contact, and yet, when she reappeared out of my cerebellum, she always
looked exactly as she did the last time I saw her in the airport. I couldn’t begin to
imagine how she had aged or matured or what might have changed. The few descriptive
terms in Natalia's conversation weren’t enough to change how I remembered Sarah. She
always liked being anonymous, the hidden person in the crowd, so that her absence from
the Net was not surprising.
During my spat with the painter I’d asked an acquaintance who’d seen her recently (I
hadn’t) to describe her to me. I didn’t like his description – something like little old
Italian lady with a bandanna. Later, I saw a picture of her with her husband, and I
thought my friend was not far from the mark. What had not changed, I observed, was
that smile that ended on the left side like an arched eye-brow, becoming almost a smirk.
She didn’t look like the woman I’d “barely” known, so I thought I might also be
surprised if I saw a current photo of Sarah. They both could see how I looked but I
doubted they were interested.
I then remembered I’d had a dream in the midst of all the back and forth between
fantasy and dream. I was in a building with many different levels, perhaps a hotel
because people were milling about. I was standing in front of a pizza counter inside this
building, and after I placed my order I was told to go across the street to another
building, take the stairs up and then down to pickup my pizza. Two people joined me as
I climbed the stairs – we seemed to know each other, but not by name, only by the fact
of our circumstance. The man was slightly taller than me, and the woman was shorter
than both of us and had blond hair, a round face, very trim body. We walked up –
endlessly it seemed – and then the stairs, widening with bigger than normal steps turned
downward. All of this seemed to have taken much longer than it should have to reach the
pizza-ready post. The stairs were neither inside nor outside and were unattached to
anything like a staircase. It was quite scary to me. I could see myself slipping or
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tripping, falling through the space where the riser should have been and continuing to
fall forever since more undefined space surrounded the stairs. We eventually reached an
area with people and pizza. I've never thought of myself as acrophobic, and yet I had lots
of dreams like this one with potential for falling. The woman came to resemble a
younger version of the painter. Nothing in the dream suggested the presence of Sarah,
who had been more on my mind than the painter. I could think of all sorts of adjectives
to describe what this dream might mean – a dream in which the painter appeared could
be more ominous than a dream in which Sarah also appeared.
The cleaning was not done, but I was done with the cleaning. Maybe I should walk over
to Small Mall and eat some pizza at Gino’s.
As I walked toward the commercial area but past Small Mall in a light rain, I decided on
the spur of the moment to head to a small covey of galleries that I often frequented. I
walked along the water-soaked, wind-blown sidewalk with my big red umbrella held
tight over my head, although it had a top that opened in a gust of wind to prevent the
umbrella from turning inside out, and out of the gray and the blur, as it were, I realized
what really was worrying me. Was last night's phone call real or had I made it up? Had I
unknowingly sunk into one of my phantom universes? Well, of course, the phone call
was real. The phone chimed, Natalia’s voice resounded, the conversation unfolded. Why
on a rainy next morning was I asking myself the absurd . . . was it real?
What hit me harder than the occasional bullet of rain was the realization that details in
Natalia's recounting of Sarah's recent life matched up weirdly with fantasies I’d sketched
out on my own, based on bits and pieces of information I’d found. I was struggling with
some aspect of verisimilitude. Our conversation had the appearance and sound of truth,
but how could it be, since my imagination had come up with almost the same narrative
before the conversation. I had anticipated what Natalia told me or I had refashioned a
simpler, briefer conversation than I thought I had with Natalia into what I wanted it to
be. Worrying but not unsettling at all. From time to time I became over-invested in my
Sarah memories, and this was what could happen. Delusionary, to be sure, but not yet
overwhelming. The psyche was still intact without much need for adjustment. The
coincidence of these narratives existed in my head, will be further subject to review and
could never be tested unless Sarah and I ended up sitting at a table across from each
other, unlikely as that seemed.
My spinning stopped when I found myself in front of a shop where I had recently
purchased a trio of photographs in beiges and browns with white-masked figures (the
photographer herself) in various positions including floating. I met the artist, and I was
convinced right away that while she was just starting, she already had developed a
personal aesthetic. Elise was a farm kid who out of boredom decided to experiment with
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a camera. I was attracted by a combination of order and uncertainty in her photographs
which were actually printed on canvas. Surprisingly, the shop wasn’t open.
I walked next door to a gallery that specialized in glass and ceramics. I knew the owner,
Rolf, and I explained that I needed small gift for tonight, and in minutes we had agreed
on a small tile brilliantly colored and perfectly glazed. Ralph knew Gino – in fact, he
and Gino had been lovers. I asked Ralph how business was holding up, and he said
surprisingly well. He thought the mix of items from low-to-high-priced was serving him
well. I thanked him and scampered home without the pizza, which seemed to have lost
its purpose.
I entered the Great Room, I stood in front of the painter’s “Fuck You”, so named by an
artist-friend when she first saw it. Like the tile I just bought, the colors, pastels mainly,
were enthrallingly vivid surrounding a black hole in the middle of the painting. Over the
oddly-shaped black hole in oranges, reds, yellows, blues was an image that could be the
middle finger – thus, the title. I loved the painting and in a curious way still loved the
artist, not deeply but not superficially either.
When I pulled my cell out of its case, I heard the all-too-familiar sound that substituted
for the original you have mail. One email turned out to be from Natalia who was using a
different account. I had to wonder how many she had? She advised me (again actually)
not to make contact with Sarah – no reason but a promise to explain later. I had no
intention of doing that, and yet I wondered why she thought I needed to be warned off.
The text message was totally mysterious if not a bit disturbing – advising me to call a
number if I had any useful information to contribute concerning the case of Conway
Thomilson Parish, i. e., Blister. I decided I had no useful information. I wanted to leave
it at that. Like Dell, and I thought like Natalia, I had concluded that CONWAY did not
have much going for him. He sure as hell seemed guilty from what I’d been told. Why
did Natalia even ask me? No wonder I was having doubts about these conversations.IX
Early evening the walk . . . the rain having cleared . . . to Gino's was about fifteen
minutes. When I arrived, I could see that the table was set for a dozen. Gino lived in
what was by his own description “nouveau brownsonian”. It was a three-story stone
structure with a small stoop about eight steps from the sidewalk. He had it designed with
a tip of the hat to the past but a strong and firm embrace of the present. The ground floor
had a study plus all the utilities and had little natural lighting. In contrast, the space
above, the Great Room, was entered directly into from the stoop through a vestibule. It
was striking in so many ways, but it was dominated by large windows front (on a
heavily-traveled street) and back (less-traveled street). The kitchen sat along the right
lateral (solid) wall, opposite the vestibule, with red appliances, white countertops and
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open shelves instead of cabinets, filled with red, white and black dishes, modern crystal
and all the imaginable tools for cooking tucked here and there.
The windows that were more modern or contemporary than traditional. He cared about
admitting as much light as possible, although the glass was tinted in such a way as to
deflect the very bright sun light. The lighting inside was designed not to compete with
the exterior light but to compliment it, to accompany it, to supplement it, as one might
say. When it was bright, even glaring outside, the filtering glass would dampen the
brightness or the glare in the room, activating some interior light in various recesses.
And, when the exterior light was naturally dimmed, the interior would come into greater
play. How the interior light reacted was, not surprisingly in this day and age of high
tech, by sensors linked to a computer program. The end of summer, the shortening of the
days plus the fast-moving clouds meant more interior lighting without replacing the
evening exterior light. One hardly felt bathed in light; more like surrounded by,
enveloped in light.
There was a third floor with several bedrooms with smaller windows but with their own
light show. Because Gino had frequent house guests, the bedrooms were designed as
independent entities with their own facilities.
The back windows, up and down, did not look out over a garden – a farm boy didn’t
need a city garden Gino explained – but another street. Gino and I shared this love for
street life à la Jane Jacobs, which both of us had read years ago. The jewel of this
Brownstone was the Great Room, spacious and intimate, made for entertaining, which
Gino did a lot of, and for curling up with a novel, which Gino did less of. For an affair
like this, too large to be elbow-to-elbow but so well designed and furnished that no one
was ever more than an elbow away.
I was greeted at the door by Gino's sister whom I knew almost as well as Gino . . . no,
better than Gino. Cici gave me a big hug and kiss and literally threw me into the arms of
Issy, her partner – in business, not romance. Gino was gay, but Cici was definitely not.
No party was ever dull with these two welcoming, introducing and maneuvering guests
no matter how few or how many.
---“Where have you been, my D-Man with lovely hair?” C shouted out, as Issy let go of
me. It had been a while since I had seen them and since I’d heard D-Man, shorthand for
Diabolical Man. Their new business, selling reclaimed up-scale cars like Porsches, was
now in its second year, was making money but was a beast with their time. They spent
part of every month on the road, and I saw them far less frequently than before Porches
entered their lives. Cici already ran one of the family farms and owned a “green” dress
shop in the suburbs while Issy, a local banker, came from a family of auto dealers. They
had known each other since childhood, and ever since they had been planning and
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intertwining their lives on many different levels. Not surprising. They came from two of
the most-spirited and business-savvy families I’d ever known. These folks were so
confident in what they were doing that they never found it necessary to talk about
making money. In fact, they talked more about football than money. One had to ask why
the hell were they hatching these ventures, and when asked, they would laugh and then
turn deadly serious with the comment “To show off”. That was the end of the
questioning period about family businesses.
Both C and Issy were straight, neither was married, and men passed through their lives
as if testing revolving doors. Perhaps, more showing off.
---“I've been working on the diabolical part . . . ,” I began before they cut me off.
---“Forget it, my love, focus on the hair. That's why you’re so popular,” they cried out in
unison, as if rehearsed, and they, each taking an arm, escorted me through the crowd to
the bar, adjacent to the kitchen, where Gino was doing the honors.
---“For a weight-lifting MD/PHD who's pretty untalented in social settings . . . poor man
. . . pour him a champagne, Gino!” They both kissed my cheeks and headed around the
bar into the kitchen.
---“I see you've been properly and fully announced, Dr G,” I heard, as Gino handed me a
flute.
---“Actually, I feel released from the weight of the world, now that I'm here.”
---“Good, com'on you have people to meet, but walk with me to the table first.” Arm-inarm, we headed to the back side of the Great Room.
---“Most of the people you've met before. Beth you don’t know. She's sitting next to you.
I'm gonna tell you two things: former dancer and may-soon-be RE.”
---"'May-soon-be RE?'"
---“Recovering Evangelical.”
---“Good Lord, Man, you know my lack of religion.”
---“I do, and that's why you’re sitting next to her. I think you can make her feel
comfortable. She works for a landscaping company that takes care of our properties. Her
brother and father own it. Big-time evangelicals – one thing I’ll say about them is that
these evangelicals are reliable. Anyway, she had a falling out,” as Gino rearranged some
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table item and then turned us backed to the crowd on the other end, “I don’t know the
details yet, but she's feeling a little unwanted, out of place . . . if you get my drift . . . .if
anyone can make her feel at home, you’re the person. Ah, John meet Dr G – we don’t
know his full name . . . .”
---“Hi, John, I tried to steal Gino's name but he balked . . . .”
---“Haven’t we all tried . . . this is my wife, Alice . . . .”
---“Hi, Alice. I'm afraid Gino's charm is his ability to sow mass confusion . . . .”
---“Yes, indeedy, how do you know Gino or is Small Mall the common denominator?”
---“Right on. I was one of the first customers at the door the day it opened.”
---“We were a few years behind you, but we've tried to make up for what we might have
missed. Have you been a long-time resident of the city?” asked John.
---“Probably a quarter of a century, although I try not to count. I've just retired form the
university, but, more pointedly, I live a few steps from the Small Mall. And you?”
---“I’m in my second year and Alice is in her first.” answered John. “I teach in the
business school – finance – everyone's favorite subject right now.”
---“How to make money every nano-second . . . .” I chimed in without sounding too
damning.
---“Actually I'm one of the critics – risk/reward has its limits – even mathematical limits.
Easier to get the message across now than a year ago. I make students take the opposite
side, that every risk cannot be fully accounted for. I can make the risk factor so invisible
that students, so bent on making millions in their 20’s, throw their hands up in disgust.
They want to leave the classroom except I’ve locked the door. Nothing like a credit
meltdown to make the point, though. I've recently joined the med school
interdisciplinary program on how to bring once-rich, now-broke financiers back to
reality . . . .”
---“Small world, as they say. As provost, I had to approve that program back when
meltdown just started,” I broke in and was amazed by the look of astonishment.
---'You are the Dr . . . ?'
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---“I am . . . Gino's no-last-name protocol has failed again. Don’t tell him. He may deny
us dessert.”
---“Why haven’t we met?”
---“Because it’s a big, somewhat decentralized university, fiefdoms being what they are,
and, more directly, I’ve been transitioning into retirement for the past year. It’s finally
done, I think. I no longer have an office, and my inbox stands virtually empty. Aren’t
those the final indicators that I’m through?”
---“I’ll remember that. I have a ways to go, but good advice. I still can’t believe we
haven’t met, although I tend to play scarce with university fanfare, if you know what I
mean. I find it hard to think and work while playing political and social games.”
---“Stick with your program. No need in the world to meet the provost or any other
higher official. The president is that sort of guy who would share your outlook. By the
same token, the culture of the university, encouraged at times and not necessarily
unwittingly by Old Main, can make visibility and linkage seem so much more important
than thinking, which is what we hire people to do.”
---“I’ll remember that too, if I ever find myself in trouble with the higher ups. I can
always reference you.”
---“At your peril, let me assure you.”
---“Where did the idea of the institute originate? The staff clinicians are beyond busy, as
you must know.”
---“Before I’d moved into the Provost slot several years back, I was Dean of the Medical
School. I am in the eyes of many a chafer. How I ever became an administrator still
causes me bewilderment. Besides having an anti-social side, I do not always work well
within prescribed boundaries . . . those academic boxes, if you know what I mean. This
idea was outside any academic box the university had thus far created. The President
was new, but he had already shown himself to be an innovator. He surprised a lot of
people inside and outside the university. He’s so gracious and articulate that they failed
to see how smart and driven he was. And, unbeknownst to most, temperamental. Like
me, he was a chafer.
---"The original idea was smaller than the program that evolved. It was drawn up by one
of our bright, young stars who, unfortunately, left the medical psychiatric faculty for
greener pastures. His new boss did not encourage him to pursue it in his new job, so he
called me, we discussed how it might be implemented here, even though he was no
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longer here, and I found myself thinking beyond what he had proposed. I did what every
good Dean should do . . . I appointed a committee from the med school and from other
disciplines. The membership was made up of young turks who were antsy to break
through some ill-defined frontier. I pitched it to the Provost, not me at the time, and the
recently-arrived Prexy, who is not a scientist but, of course, who recognized its potential
immediately. His business is raising money, making contacts and burnishing image.
Meetings were held, information gathered, plans laid, and as the idea got kicked around,
it grew from simply dealing with the behavior of traders to related behaviors. The
Provost left, I assumed the Provostship, the meltdown began, and the catalyst presented
itself.
---"As Provost, I was in a position to advance the seed money for hiring the faculty and
staff to open the clinic, against, I must emphasize, strong opposition from certain
quarters. I brought the originator of the plan back to serve as director, top-flight, as you
know him to be, and he brought with him several prominent brain specialists. We were
off and running. The Prexy, who is, as I mentioned, smart and articulate, raised millions,
and the Provost’s seed money was repaid pronto. Because the Prexy kept bouncing new
assignments my way, I was too busy to follow the day-by-day progress of the clinic in
its expanded role. Besides, Jeff was so good at what he did and I was an unneeded
lightening rod that I distanced myself from the operation of the clinic. It was the least of
my worries. I read the annual stats and reports, as any good provost should do, but kept
my distance. I’d made enemies in pushing so hard for the clinic, and I was making new
enemies daily, as I was trying to carry out the Prexy’s mandate. And, then, a year ago I
walked into the Prexy’s Office, and announced I was done. I resigned effective not quite
immediately but almost. I served as a special consultant to the Prexy for the next few
months, and three months ago he unleashed me. I’ve been winding down since then. The
past year has been hectic because it was so irregular, and I imagine that’s how I missed
your appointments, John and Alice.”
---“It’s as challenging an assignment as I’ve ever had,” said John. “That why I took the
job. For me a change of direction and emphasis. My role is to help the clinicians
understand the complex financial transactions that invariably come up in their sessions.
I've been studying finance for twenty years, but this has been unlike any phase of my
career. I’d never thought about the brain in all this.”
---“There were some early pioneers in the study of what makes financiers, traders and
the like behave as they do, but it took the new technologies to move the field ahead. I'm
not sure what gave rise to my fascination with the idea originally, except the behavior of
traders match up in neural activity with other more disruptive personal undertakings.
When I was in practice, I had an alcoholic brother, an alcoholic-now-ex-father-in-law, a
cocaine-driven cousin and a gambling-possessed friend. A pretty scary set of people,
wouldn’t you say. In one of those off-moments, probably with a flute of champagne in
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hand, I started thinking about the interconnectedness of these behaviors, and since I was
a psychiatrist who was doing research on the effectiveness of medicine rather than talk,
it was a small step into the exotic world of the brain chemist. But, I never got very far
because I was tapped for headship, deanship and finally provostship. I’ve remained
connected to my original research interests by being active as an reader, evaluator and
editor. But, you can understand why I was fascinated with the idea of the clinic . . . an
effort to piece together a larger puzzle of a series of behaviors rather than focusing on
one or two. Here was chance to let brain specialists operate within the dual context of a
clinic and a lab to answer some bigger questions. All the clinicians are granted time to
carry out research on the brain's neurological structures and processes in the context of
the behavior of the trader as well as related behaviors. As you no doubt know, the
research is beginning to appear in the best professional journals. No pressure to publish,
especially since the clinic’s schedule at the moment is solidly booked, but many of the
clinicians want to publish, and we’ve allowed Jeff to keep their clinic load light for the
next five years. That’s how one of those off-moment turned out. And you, Alice?”
---“I'm an administrator at the University. I make sure the Dean of the Arts College gets
to lunch.”
---“Caring for Provosts, VP's and Deans is high on risk and low on reward, I'm afraid.”
Alice had a quiet but endearing laugh. She was an attractive woman whose round face
had a warm glow. I was wondering how much younger she was than her husband when
the answer was forthcoming . . . .
---“I’m still learning the high-risk ropes. John and I married about six months ago, and I
moved here from another university where I held a similar administrative post. Each
university setting is different, however.”
---“Academe is a relative of country stores – so familiar but so different. And, how are
you finding the new setting?” I asked.
---“To my liking for the most part. This is a bigger, more complex and ultimately more
highly exhausting operation.”
---“It specializes in exhausting people,” I said, as C filled my glass and laid her hand on
my shoulder.
---“I hope this phantom from the underground isn’t leading you down a primrose path
that ends up in the brambles . . . How are you John and Alice?” intoned C.
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---“Well, thank you. Enjoying the evening, even though it's just started,” replied Alice,
quick-witted, even though admittedly exhausted, I mused.
---“But your warning's too late. We're in the brambles,” added John.
---“All right, D-Man, what gives?” she looked at me as she handed the empty
champagne bottle to one of the waitstaff, made up university students who loved
working for Gino and C.
---“Well, the brambles are that Alice is overworked in line with the malevolent
characters of Deans and Provosts, and John is expending his talents on saving The
Crazies at the clinic you once cursed me out with ‘Let'em jump or let’em sink, they
deserve the worst,” which provoked more laughter and a kiss on the cheek from C.
---“And I haven’t changed my mind – shame on John, you know their sins better than
anyone,” as C, after the kiss, let her elbow find my rib.
---“In defense of my wastrel ways I'm trying to make enough money to buy one of your
Porsches . . . .” John said, keeping the banter going.
---“We only sell to the pure of heart, and by the way I haven’t told you about our
client/lawyer recently in the news?”
---“I don’t think so,” said Alice, and we all nodded.
---“You probably read the story but there was nothing in the story about a reconditioned
Porche. It reminded me of an article I read several years ago in the Harvard Business
Review on the depth of the gluttony on Wall-Street, written under a pseudonym, not as a
straightforward and, therefore, dull academic piece but as a modern version of a trip
through Dante’s Fourth Circle . . . now, who could have written that, I wonder?”
I could feel my face reflecting crimson, as I bowed my head, all of which John observed
and, then, exclaimed with astonishment,
---“Oh my god, I never knew, nor did I suspect, did many others . . . .”
---“I'm the culprit,” I finally interjected. “Only a handful of people knew my identity,
and, as a once practicing psychiatrist and at the time a prominent provost, the fact that
my identity could be hidden so successfully was almost more embarrassing than what
might have been said if my authorship had been revealed. The route was circuitous. Not
even the editor, a colleague of a friend, knew my true identity until long after it was
published. Everything passed through my friend, a trophy of a surgeon – nothing close
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to psychiatry. That was why we could maintain the cover. There were reasons that made
sense at the time but make no sense now. Yes, I took the reader on a brief – it’s only
seven pages – modern-day journey through the Fourth.”
---“Enough self-promotion, D-Man. Back to my story . . . the lawyer who raided his
client's escrow accounts for money to buy an eighteen-million dollar yacht because he
had convinced himself that his greed was not visible enough to gain the adoration he
coveted.”
---“Of course,” said John. “I read that story in the Wall Street Journal.”
---“Well, that's another no-no, John, before you buy one of our Porsches – no WallStreet-Journal, Rupert-Murdoch-Evil reading. Not even the devil, as D-Man knows so
well, would cavort with that Aussie. Who can read all that shit in one day and remember
anything,” said C in all serious before continuing her story. “So this crook-lawyer also
decided that a very expensive Porsche from us would further enhance his image, his
reputation – in short, teach people to adore him as his possessions demanded – and after
a conversation or two by phone we turned him down flatly and told him unequivocally
he was wacko, although I don’t think Issy used those exact words. After exploding with
threats like – I’ll sue – he hung up. So . . . has he showed up at the clinic yet?”
---“I wouldn’t know,” I replied, “although I too remember seeing a brief account of his
mea culpa.”
---“Not to my knowledge.” said John, “I don’t often know who the clients are. But, how
did you know not to deal with him?”
---“She lives in a transcendent, paranormal universe,” as I felt another elbow, a blow, not
a nudge.
---“I’d like to say I have powers, but we ran a quick check after his first phone call and
the info was less than stellar. Add to that, as the D-Man would tell you, a revealing
conversational marker – ‘I this, I that’ – and two plus two quickly became four. He was
out to lunch. We didn’t think he could afford an ‘Oldie’, let alone deserve one, so he
became one of our rejects. We have a long list. Reform, John, there’s room for you . . . .”
---“I'm sorry to break up this much-too-serious discussion,” were words from Gino, now
standing in front of us. “I warn you, Dr G's fees are exorbitant and C’s stories are
extravaganzas!” To laughter he escorted us to the table where some were already seated.
I shook hands and exchanged hugs with the others, all of whom I knew and had not yet
greeted, and then I walked to the chair Gino had assigned me on the corner next to him
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on my left at the head of the table. To my right stood a tall, thin, attractive woman who
seemingly had entered the room by way of a shadow. I could not recall noticing her in
the crowd during the cocktail hour, and she was so striking she could not have been
missed.
---“You must be Dr G,” she said, turning toward me with an outstretched hand, which I
held lightly in my own. “And also D-Man, if I'm not mistaken.” Her voice was small but
firm. Her smile was restrained. Her ocean-blue eyes, which were almost level with mine,
were more focused on my shirt collar than my face. Naturally shy but showing poise.
---“Right, on both count. You are Beth?”
---“Yes. I suspect I know more about you that you know about me.”
---“Typical for dinner at Gino's. I'm only invited under special conditions . . . that I
always know less than everyone else.”
Her smile broadened. I pulled her chair back, noting while she seated herself that her
deep auburn ponytail almost reached the middle of her back. As I seated myself, I
thought the youngest in the crowd and certainly the most striking in appearance. I was
looking forward to the evening, even though I had no way to anticipate what was ahead.
Beth broke the silence after C placed a cup of cold cucumber soup on her plate and
whispered in Beth’s right ear something I couldn’t hear, and as she served me, she
whispered “Pay attention” and moved on.
---“Gino told me you are a psychiatrist. I've never met a practicing psychiatrist.”
---“Psychiatrist, yes, practicing, not much anymore, at dinner parties I pretend I'm a coal
miner.”
---“And have you ever been a coal miner?”
---“Indeed, I was, ever so briefly only because I grew up in a coal-mining family. I knew
from an early age neither mining nor farming – the other side of the family – would I
ever pursue. Psychiatry more or less just happened – was not one of those I-want-to-bea-fireman moments. How about you?”
---“Never had a fireman moment either. Can’t say I ever thought much about what I
wanted to be or do when growing up. It was comfortable, secure, not without trouble but
manageable, I guess I just thought I’d stay home forever. When you come from a family
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of ten, you feel either you have all you need or more than you want. For me it was the
former. It's pretty easy to coast and float in a family that large.”
---“Are you close to your family in adulthood?”
---“Yes and no, I was more than I am now. I lived at home until a few weeks ago.”
---“And now?”
---“In one of the guest houses on Gino's farm. It's temporary and probably explains why
I'm here. Gino thought I could use a little diversion. I've never been to a dinner party like
this. I can’t say I'm totally at ease. I'm not sure what to say. I was ready, though, for a
night out.”
---“If your first dinner party . . . at Gino's table is a good place to start. Everyone here is
pretty easy-going. Will you be going back home in the future?” I ventured, although I
thought I knew the answer.
---“A big if . . . had a falling out and not sure where I stand in their eyes.”
---“If you want to return, any chance you can talk through your differences. Given what
you've told me, you seem to have had many good years.”
---“We did, but a lot of our home life is built around our local church – what is known as
an apostolic, evangelical congregation.”
---“Was it also charismatic?”
---“Are you familiar, are you or were you ever a member? Most people don’t know that
term. Yes, it was charismatic.”
---“Never a member. Not religious. I'm afraid I fall into the heathen category – a
longtime, unredeemable heathen – one who’s heard the message many times and
rejected it just as many. In my line of business religious issues often lay at the root of
individual or family conflicts.” I could see Gino observing our conversation, although he
couldn’t hear our remarks. Beth was by nature soft-spoken, and I was keeping my voice
as low as possible. “Is religion at the root of your current disagreement?”
---“Yes. I'm having doubts, and in our church that can cause people to spring into action.
A doubting Thomas in the unit can be troubling for everyone.”
---“Are you simply in the doubting stage, not ready to take the next step?”
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---“Yes, that's how I feel. But, I've created a small tornado, and I felt I had to separate
myself for a while. Should I be telling this to a psychiatrist? I've never talked to anyone
about my feelings except to the designated church authorities, and even with them I was
never fully forthcoming. I started a conversation with one of them a couple of months
back, but, before we got very far, other stuff happened. I know nothing about your field,
but I knew what was happening to me shouldn’t be. So, I took off with a small bag and
ended up in Gino's guest house. I'm still working for my family, but only because Gino
and Cici insisted that if my family wanted their business, I was to stay on the payroll and
be responsible for their properties until things got settled. Right now, I'm in-between."
---“If I can reassure you, I'm probably the safest of all the psychiatrists south of Hudson
Bay to confide in, since I've retired from practice. On the basis of what you’ve said thus
far, even if I had no psychiatric training, I think Gino and C did the right thing,
temporary though it may be. Allowing you some distance might help clear the air.”
Just then Gino, who had been attentive to our conversation but out of range, announced
in a manner so succinct and yet so informed the wines for the evening. Then, his
waitstaff removed the soup dishes and served the entrée, a daube de boeuf that made the
air yummy even before it was tasted.
---“It's highly probable that most of us for most of our lives live in-between . . . the trick
is to manage lives constantly in transition.”
---“I probably agree with both parts except I've had long periods in which transitions
were muted if not forbidden. Is that possible?”
---“I've never heard it put quite that way. Resisting transitions comes in various forms,
but we all resist. Some transitions can be terribly disorienting and feel never-ending. You
may fell uncomfortable, but you should know that lots of us struggle with transitions.
You’re in good hands with the two sibs, and if past experience is any guide – it may not
be – an opening may occur that will allow you and your family to resume a
conversation, that is, if you feel so inclined.”
---“I don’t know if it can resume. I'm not feeling so good about that. Personal beliefs,
which I thought were unassailable and had been for years, suddenly began crumbling.
When I talked to Cici about this, she was pretty direct and no-nonsense, and I was scared
at first but no one can stay scared at Cici long. I knew at the next dinner party I would be
invited and introduced to someone who might provide some perspective. That must be
you. Did you not know?”
---“As of an hour ago. Gino alerted me. Actually, C does my job better than I do.”
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---“Gino was less enthusiastic because of your retired status, but Cici said she'd make
sure you were ‘unretired’ for whatever time was needed. It made me laugh. A role
model.”
---“You could do worse, and I'm not surprised the two sibs disagreed about my status. A
long, simmering discussion.” I then noticed that C from the other end of the table was
monitoring our conversation, and when I turned in her direction she smiled and got up
from the table and headed to the kitchen.
I decided it was time to put a delay on this conversation and to try to move to a different
subject. I was afraid where it was heading and felt the need to change the conversational
agenda."
---“Do you drive one of those really big mowers that could manicure a pasture in no
time flat?”
---“Big but not that big. Because they have almost as much occupied space as open
space I rely a lot on hand tools and small machines. They have all the stuff I need so I
don’t have to depend on my family to deliver tools or machines. I love their tools and
machines because unlike ours they’re new, high-tech and operational.”
---“Not surprised to learn that. Their farms hardly fit our images of the Old Frontier.
They’re very smart and careful farmers. In fact, I’m of the opinion that they violate
almost every rule in Business Management 101."
---“Never having been to college, I missed out on Business Management 101. From
what I can observe, they are smart and careful and decent.”
---“Last point well deserved. It’s already Fall. What happens when winter descends?”
---“Usual winter maintenance, although the winter coming up will be my first on my
own.”
---“So, you’re responsible for absolutely clear driveways and walkways even in the
midst of a blizzard?”
---“I guess. Since you must visit their properties, I’m surprised we haven’t encountered
each other.”
---“They . . . no, C . . . keeps me out sight of the employees and friends. I’m a menace.”
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Before Beth could respond, the waitstaff began to clear the dishes, and I knew that C
was playing her part. The dessert was on its way. Perfect timing.
She seemingly read my mind.
---“The dessert stall,” Beth said, words that surprised me, especially since they were
accompanied by a sardonic smile, not what I expected.
---“Dessert stall?” I repeated. “That sounds pithy and profound except . . . .”
---“You don’t know what it means? It’s what we often say to each other in the church
basement after a Chef-Boyardee canned spaghetti dinner . . . big cans, really big cans . . .
with Wonder Bread and Iceberg lettuce salads smothered in that orangy dressing to raise
our hopes that it will be a magnificent sweet treat . . . .”
---“And?”
---“Ice cream, of course, in Dixie Cups with cookies badly baked in some Christian . . .
no, apostolic . . . bakery in the shape of Bibles. The stall . . . a wait between the
spaghetti, which I, not knowing much about food, thought was awful, and the dessert,
which was at least eatable . . . when our souls were filled with platitudes to quiet the
rumble of our tummies.” All of which caused me to laugh and her to grin, a grin you
can’t resist.
---“Gino's desserts are worth a stall,” I said a second before, to my surprise, the
cheesecake arrived. Beth noted my surprise as I looked at her, the cheesecake and Gino
in that order.
---“The stall is about to become une présentation d’une dessert, dans la vérité une forme
d'une Dixie Cup sans bible – what Americans might think of as ‘showing off’.”
At each place appeared a perfectly sliced cheesecake with a little grated lime sprinkled
on top and a dribble of raspberry sauce on the side. Not firm or spongy like American
cheesecakes . . . lighter, more like a mousse. It had become a Gino specialty since I’d
brought back the recipe from my favorite café in Paris, Café des Philosophes. The uhs
and ahs around the table were genuine, and during the past two years, as he had
perfected his version, I could barely tell any difference from the original. And, someone
said,
---“So? Clue us in . . . .”
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Gino explained how the recipe had arrived in his possession and how he had
experimented with it and then turned to me and said,
---“But, the ‘Good Doctor’ has the best story,” and moved his outstretched arm in my
direction.
I knew the clue, and yet it was an uncomfortable moment, for reasons I could not
explain, since it never had been uncomfortable before. I stood with a wobble, I sensed,
that caused me move behind my chair so I could grip the top rail, and smiling to relieve
the tension, I hoped, I launched the story that Gino wanted me to tell (again) to a new
assemblage including Beth, a story that Gino and C had heard many times before,
although I tried to vary the telling each time. Little lies under these circumstances would
hardly matter. It was a story I loved, but I did not really want to tell it publicly anymore,
at least not right now.
---“Here’s the story,” I said in as strong and enthusiastic voice as I could muster.
Mingled with the story I was about to tell was another story. In high school I’d had the
leads in all the student performances and was destined to go to what was then called
Carnegie Tech to study drama, the alma mater of our drama coach, Joy, until, that is, she
tried to seduce me in the props’ closet late one night. I think I had a teenage orgasm, but
I knew I was scared out of my mind. I lost all interest in the stage, although I knew I had
the voice to engage people’s attention, and that voice I needed right now.
---“When some friends were visiting while I was living in Paris, we went to Les
Philosophes to have coffee and eat cheesecake. The hostess, Andreana, a young painter
trying to make ends meet, with whom I was head-over-heels in love, even though she
never knew it.”
I welcomed the laughter in order to steady my nerves, acting up in a way I hadn’t known
before.
---“She stared at me with misery enshrouding her gorgeous deep brown eyes, and after
she said, ‘Non, nous n’en avon pas’, she stopped and said instead, ‘Attendez, Richard’.
She started running down the street. I said to my friends I wasn’t sure what was
happening but let’s be patient. In a few minutes, Sébastien, the serveur whom I'd met my
first night at the Café, appeared with our coffee. He was smiling, and as he looked down
the street, he patted me on the shoulder and pointed at the same time. What we saw was
Andreana and another serveur coming up the street, past row after row of seated patrons
in the several other cafés, with a tray of cheesecakes. When she sit the plates with bigger
slices than I’d ever seen at Les Philosophes in front of us, she announced to us and those
seated nearby,
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---‘J'ai volé votre gâteau au fromage d'un autre restaurant. Mangez-le rapidement avant
qu'ils arrivent avec la police.’
---“That was followed by an outdoor cacophony of applause and a few forks tapping
against the aluminum table at her bravada performance. I was speechless, especially
after she kissed me on the cheek, the first time ever and, sadly, the last as well. My
friends whispered, ‘Did she say steal?’ I nodded as best I could, not able to take my eyes
off her lithe but disappearing body, in the affirmative.
---"In the doorway stood the owner with Sébastien. My friends were looking
incredulous, as if the Cheesecake Police might descend at any moment, and I added,
‘Une bonne santé – une histoire que possible à Paris!’ I never told them, and I ask you,
dear friends of Gino and C, to keep this secret . . . the proprietor in the doorway also
owned the other restaurants.”
The guest howled and clapped, and I sat. I felt Beth’s hand on my arm, as if to say, “It
worked.”
As the guests were finishing their desserts, C showed up next to Beth, whispered again
something in her ear that made Beth smile and walked away around my chair without a
word but her hand rustling through my hair. In a few minutes Beth and I moved to a
sofa, an express in my hands and water for Beth.
---”Another unique evening in the company of Gino, C and their friends. These affairs
make a mockery of the expression Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.”
---“My French is very limited, but that phrase has resided in my head for years. I don’t
know where I first read it. I was home schooled, and I studied German instead of French
or Spanish, which was what friends in the public schools studied.”
---“Why German? I studied Greek and German in college, and neither is easy.”
---“My last name is German, and German was occasionally spoken at home. Somewhere
I heard or read that French phase, which I could never pronounce. It struck me as both a
summons and a summation. I think I know how to interpret that phrase, and yet what it
has come to mean is that it’s useless to make any change. It has made me inwardly
suspicious of life, of change, of just about everything. I should add, however, that this
evening is a change and is not the same yet. Of course, who knows how things will work
out.”
---“I don’t know how many times I’ve told that story, but tonight I felt a tension I never
felt before. As if, this time, it was going to be different. I knew what to expect, and yet it
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felt unexpected as if I’d never done it before. But, then, it turned out, as I expected. Odd
how we conjure up the unexpected to accompany what we expect. And, then, we shrink
– pardon the professional allusion – when the change is not what we expect and the
result is not the same. The expression, I've always thought, was our defense against
change that we expect or want but we fear or ignore. We then mesh the patterns before
and after, and we conclude nothing has changed. The truth may be that every moment is
different from the previous moment and the next. Telling that story tonight, again, but to
a different crowd under different circumstances . . . It was a different story, although it
sounded lie the same story I' d told before. My words were different, my emphases ever
different, I may have purposely refashioned the narrative because you were sitting next
to me, because Gino and C had we should be so seated, that John and Alice, opposite us,
and I had a conversation earlier, that we've all drunk more wine than we should . . . so
much about the setting is different from previous settings that the story had to unfold
differently, even though it may have sounded the same to Gino, C and me. Nothing is
ever the same – an event, a narrative, a setting – but when it doesn't turn out the way we
want it to, we get pissed . . . oops, I apologize . . . .”
---“‘Pissed off’ is what you meant to say,” injected Beth quietly but with feeling. “Even
we apostles swear, especially when our mowing equipment goes bonkers.”
Her comment erased immediately any tension left in my body.
---“I'm still struggling with the ‘dessert stall’,” was her quick-witted response, “because
it did not turn out to be a Dixie Cup. It really was a dessert worth waiting for because it
had a story. I can’t think of any other dessert, stall or not, that had a story rather than a
command.”
She continued: “I'm realizing that I'm not as accustomed as I should be to changing
rhythms and patterns. In the world I come from steadiness is what counts – the same
greeting in the morning, the same prayer at the table, the same service at church, the
same answers to all questions. I suppose it's not as rigid as I make it out to be, but
change is suspect. It's not unlike mowing a yard or shoveling a driveway. In my world
the more things change, the more they stay the same is rewritten to say they ought to
stay the same.”
---“In landscaping and more generally in life there may be a certain efficiencies to be
gained when patterns repeat and changes abate. That's what Henry Ford counted on. All
institutions whether economic, religious or political embrace routines to maintain order
and control so your experience probably matches many others. In fact, everyone around
that table seek routines, and can become pissed off, if I may, when they fail us. We often
idealize the opposite of routine, but even when we’re the most wild-eyed and unleashed,
we curiously expect to find routines. We seek change or make ourselves seek change,
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but we may be hard-wired to seek it so long as it doesn’t disrupt the sameness, that is,
the patterns and routines we have come to live by. We live amidst constant change, but it
can be a struggle. It’s also a struggle of a different sort for those who live constantly
with runaway change. I suspect we like the expression plus ça change, plus c'est la
même chose because we can make it fit several modes, one of our mental gymnastics.”
---“Am I flirting with disaster by abandoning long-practiced routines?”
---“I don’t think so. My word of caution is that outcomes can be anticipated, like my
story-telling tonight, but never assured. That should not discourage you but only make
you aware of the possibility. You may end up more dissatisfied and disoriented if you
don’t try to break patterns and routines you’re feeling uncomfortable over.”
---“How about you? More routine or change?”
I paused for a moment and then looked at her with a full smile.
---“I mean no disrespect. You have an uncanny way of catching me off-guard. All my
life, since I was a kid, I've fought routine. As my Father would say, it's your bug-a-boo
for not following the rules. I chafe under rules and regulations, routines and regimens.
As soon as I meet a code of conduct or inquiry or behavior, I want to change it. Of
course, I can’t and I shouldn’t, but the tension is always there. I'm not a role-model.”
---“But you've had a successful life and career, haven’t you? Can it be so bad to go
overboard – in fact, I'm thinking the church where I worship and the faith I practice may
be more excessive than anything I might change to. In other words, can’t the steadiness
of routine, demanded of us, be more devastating than breaking with routine?”
---“Absolutely. You've figured out in an hour or so what it may take others months on
the couch to figure out.”
---“Maybe it's the couch that slows them down . . . if they could sit at Gino's table . . .
presto!” And that was where the evening ended, as people were beginning to make their
exodus. I assumed Beth was riding with Cici so I bid her l’adieu – I said to her and
myself it was a pleasure – and picked my coat off the rack. At the door Gino put his
arms around me and whispered, “You’re a prince, and by the way they're hung,”, as he
pointed back to the kitchen wall where I saw the ceramics had been hung, and before I
could ask any questions I found myself in his sister's embrace who said next weekend
you’re coming to the farm for the annual autumn dinner, and before I could say
anything, she pushed me out the door.
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As I walked down the street, I was thinking about Beth, who had spent much of her life
in the service of the church only to realize something was wrong. My thought was, she
still had some figuring out ahead of her but she wasn’t on the verge of any breakdown.
Certainly, her sense of humor was a positive sign, when my cell went off, not once but
twice, a piercing ring that I had chosen so as not to miss text messages. I slowed my
pace as I walked past the Small Mall, across the street and now closed. The screen
showed one message from Dell, the first since I had skipped town, and a second from
Natalia. The messages brought me to a halt in the middle of the block before my place,
as they contained the same news – Blister had committed suicide after having been
released on bail. Their notes contained very little else.
---“Bail?” I asked myself.
I thought it was supposed to take weeks to reach the point of his release. What
happened? Trying to figure this out on a windy city street at midnight hardly seemed
promising. As long as I had known Blister, suicide was not an option. We did not know
Blister as well as we thought. My next thought was that the Patriarch had succeeded in
springing his son without considering what might happen or preparing for it. The
unthinkable . . . it happened . . . and as I started walking again, I muttered to no one in
particular in the dark of the night, “Worse than a mess.”
When I got home, I sank into my chair by the sliding glass door and stared into the
blinking, twinkling city in front of me . . . what was left of the night light show. Not
quite sure what I should do, I decided that calling tonight was not a good idea mainly
because I myself was hardly ready to deal with this mess. As little as I had seen Blister
in the last decade, I shouldn't be feeling the loss I'm feeling. His suicide was just the
final act in a long string of acts that I now realize I never fully comprehended. The more
his ex or his father or the family in general dumped on him, the more he closed himself
off from her and them. The Freudian implications were profound, but he was not a
client, he was a friend, and I felt toward him, not as someone who was going to analyze
his childhood complexes, but someone who wanted to give him a pat on the back and
say, “It's OK.”
---"It wasn't OK, though."
He liked me, but I doubt if he ever trusted me. He once said to me “You always have
your feet on the ground” with a touch of disdain, as if he knew he didn’t and, more
importantly, he knew I knew he didn’t. I've sometimes thought about that remark
because it had other formulations, which have been directed at me.
No matter how much discomfort such remarks caused me it captured a basic truth about
me, especially in my relation with others. My friendship with Blister ended as soon as
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we had no occasion to be in touch. I made no effort, and I suspected he didn’t either. I
would have talked to him if I could have last week, but no one, including myself, made
any real effort to cause it to happen. Yet, all along and even now at his death, I've been
treated as if I were inner circle, the Patriarch’s circle that accepted his Shibboleths and
remained in ignorance. I wasn’t. I’d always been an outsider. I was simply a “gracious”
outsider. In the face of the Patriarch’s blustering, I remained quiet. Blister tried to
become an outsider, and I supposed that he’d say, if asked, “To save myself.” He didn’t
save himself. A therapist could fairly easy derive the hows and whys of Blister’s failure,
if he were alive to talk about it. It was not a question of breaking loose or not breaking
loose from the family and the environment he’d rejected, perhaps, despised. No doubt,
he was adrift, and that had implications for his behavior. Adrift was a symptom. Before
tonight’s news I would not have described him as dissociative, but I know now – too late
– that it was worse than that. In the end, because I’ve seen very little of him, regrettably
and sadly, and have talked very little about him with the family, I was truly in the dark
about his behavior. I tried to answer Dell and Marge’s questions with some plausible
explanations, but, obviously, I was just speculating.
As I stared out on a city in its post-midnight winding-down, I realized how much the
ground had shifted beneath me over the past few weeks, nay, the past few months. None
of this – Sarah, Blister, Natalia, Beth – anticipated, and yet, I was in the thick of things. I
felt myself being pulled in, and at the same time – my natural or acquired stance – trying
to pull myself out. The outcome of this battle raging somewhere in that off-limit inner
sanctum was far from clear.
That Natalia, a first-rate lawyer, full of pedigree, struggling with a divorce and the
future, an outsider with inside information, bought Sarah front and center after a period
when I quietly talked to Sarah without any expectation. That had ended, but the
unfolding, I knew, would continue without any indication where it would end. Wellgrounded was how my colleagues and friends and even my enemies routinely referred to
me. A few – C for one – saw me when the “well-grounded” became the “ungrounding”.
One night, after making love for hours, we lay in an indecent, oversized King Bed,
stuffed into in an isolated but permanent three-sided lean-to – how the hell did she ever
get me to vacation in a lean-to, let alone fuck her with such abandon in it – on a private
beach somewhere in the Pacific with an ocean so close its lapping seemingly flowed
around the King, neither of us wanting to sleep and drinking more bubbly than we
should have. Fucking C was infrequent, though it was as full a carnal experience as I’d
ever known. A moment of surprise when she pulled her weightlifter’s body over mine
and said in a voice that allowed no dismissal:
---“Time to talk. I usually don’t mix sex and talk, but you are the only male in the world
who knows me inside and out – your damned psycho-analytical mind – while you’ve
been forthcoming, not about Sarah. So, out with it.”
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It was well past sunrise when I’d finished. I thought to myself at the time, “She knows
more than I do.” I was drained, and C held me ever so tightly as we slept away the
morning and part of the afternoon.
One of the first things we were taught in student-clinical sessions was to separate serious
from artifice and especially to be aware that the latter may be used to make the doctor a
crutch. It was a never-ending battle with patients, and over the years I suppose I’d grown
very skeptical about people's intentions, not only on the couch but in all interpersonal
encounters, for fear of creating a bond of dependence that would prove unyielding later.
In terms of the couch, that was defensible; in general terms I’d chosen distance as well
with some exceptions. C and I shared the fear of bonding, and the pattern that has
evolved since we first met was we talked, laughed, joked frequently, as we did tonight,
and because we weren’t afraid to push the envelope we fucked once in a while, like a
week in a Pacific lean-to about to be swallowed up by the ocean. Telling her of my love
for Sarah did not change that. I knew about the man C had lost when she was young
woman, a love she never allowed to scar over, and now she knew about my love that I
would never allow to scar over either.
One crucial difference. I had never met her man, she had met Sarah. As I told my story,
that difference was on my mind. When I had finished, C having been
uncharacteristically quiet throughout, said nothing immediately.
I asked her: “So, have I got a grip on reality or have I lost it?”
Quiet though she had been, she was ready with an answer.
---“Your grip is solid. I loved that woman. She drew me in the same way you described
yourself being drawn in. The hole her leaving left was so palpable to me, even when we
fucked for Old Glory and all those other clichés. You know how to love someone else, as
I do, without erasing. Don’t take this personally, D-Man, I had filled in some of the
crucial details you related in this floating bed without asking. They were so obvious.
That’s why I can say your grip is solid.”
The conversation ended there. We made love again – the C and D-Man version – without
any further reference to what had just been said. It had been that way, for the most part,
ever since. A few times the subject of Sarah came up, but not often. I suspected,
although nothing had been said yet, she was aware in some spooky way of what had
transpired over the past two weeks. She will be told. Distance for most people in my life
but not C. She won’t allow it.
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Well, that hadn’t been the case for the past weeks. I’d been drawn into more circles than
I could have guessed. My retirement was now official and complete, but before the next
phase could begin in earnest, loose ends from my past continued to dangle. Meeting
Beth was new but listening to her story and sharing my stories were re-enacting the past,
not pushing ahead. Was I tired, had I drunk too much, was feeling the discomfort of
ending, transitioning and beginning, what was it that made the loose ends feel so
numerous and so complex? Was I having trouble accommodating to the change that Beth
and I tossed around tonight? The changes involved people I liked, and that was different
from what all mental-health types confront. On any list of clients there were numerous
individuals who could disappear without much sadness. The wild card was the reemergence of Sarah. I wasn’t sure where this was headed, but for the moment I felt more
sadness over tonight’s news than fear over future entanglements.
The experience with Sarah taught me something I had actually incorporated into the
sessions I conducted. I could not and have not forgotten her, not because there was some
kind of evil psychic glue holding her in place but because I wanted her in a place. I had
to find the right place. If I’d declared her persona-non-grata with no place where we
couldn’t pretend at the very least to communicate, I’d be worse off. When I discussed
this as a possibility with colleagues, they jumped all over me – holding on was worse
than letting go, bite the bullet . . . I knew all the clichés – and that was the end of the
conversation except for the finger I gave them mentally. The part they could never
understand was that I felt relief, need, repose in communicating, even though I doubted
that it mattered at all to Sarah.
Only C could ever understand.
As I turned this over in my mind, I realized that the loose ends were less about not
accommodating, more about not knowing – a condition that probably would not prevail
– and less about not controlling. When I took a quick, unscientific mental temperature, I
realized I was feeling discomfort but not yet feeling discombobulation.
Of course, unless I wanted to resurrect the painter whose power over me belonged to a
different dimension. I was too tired to pursue that.
I could long for Sarah without losing control, and I had walled off the painter for the
opposite reason, and that, despite the recent events, remained the score. The sliding glass
door continued to emit a scattering of flickers of light and not much else, the streets
having emptied and the sky having darkened, leaving the room almost totally
enshrouded in darkness, I thought once again that it started with Blister in jail and
evolved to Blister dead and in between Natalia . . . Sarah . . . Beth plus C whom I’d not
seen in weeks made appearances. The Good Doctor senses he had to do what he told his
patients not to do – hide under the covers.
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That's what I did. I went to bed.X
In the morning I awoke to a ringing cell in the other room. I had no intention of
answering or retrieving it yet. I was trying to recall as many details of my dream about
Beth as I could.
I think it was Beth or someone impersonating her – tall, statuesque, as if on toe, lean,
blue-eyed, square-jawed, poised and yet distance, never any external manifestation of
inner turmoil. How much inner turmoil? Home schooled, lacking an advanced degree
but remarkably articulate and perceptive. My dream character keep saying, “Rehearse
your lines. Don’t muff them.” I wanted to recover more than I could.
The cell went off again, and I decided I had to face whatever music the ringtones were
delivering. When I checked the screen, – oh my god . . .half-dozen messages or calls –
and I put the phone down without scrolling through. I needed a half-hour before I could
gather up the energy to deal with the morning.
I made the Peet's extra strong and sat with my mug in the same chair, in the same place I
had exited last night, the same except the nightscape had been replaced by dayscape,
alternating sunny and cloudy – fast-moving clouds could only mean a windy day. From
what I could see in the message banners, I decided I should turn on CNBC, whose
reporters were distressingly windy like the day. I saw a reporter standing outside
someone’s compound, a front gate I knew quite well. I could guess what was up. I raised
the volume. A spokesman, the reporter said, had confirmed Blister's suicide, and, in
addition, other spokesmen confirmed that the funds, which he managed and those the
recently-arrested hedgers had managed, had also been shut down, all the assets or what
remained of them being placed in the hands of federal receivers. A new investigation
was being launched because the feds now had evidence of a widening circle of
participants and victims. The market was jittery for other reasons, however, and I
switched off the TV. I took a long sip of Peet's.
---“More to come,” I kept saying aloud. “More to come.”
I could not even begin to anticipate how much more nor for how long. Funny, though, I
wasn’t feeling threatened or uneasy. “More to come”, a comfortable cliché. That was all.
Reassurance for my amagdala. My life had been intertwined with the Patriarch and the
Compound, but I’d always had an outsider role. I’d kept it that way. I could foresee the
end of any further role. Blister’s death had broken the glass into a thousand shreds.
Sadness but not breakdown. Not just closure, but a closing, an ending. Not complete yet
but moving toward completion.
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I opened Dell's text message. Profuse apologies for involving me. He confessed that he
thought there was far more to this than was being talked about at the time, but only after
Natalia had been engaged did the breadth of the scandal become evident. He should
have been honest with me, but he wasn’t. He was deeply sorry, and I knew he was. This
was not his problem, he had married into the family, and, as a good son-in-law, he had to
tote his bail of cotton. He had hoped that Blister would talk to me, but when the subject
was raised Blister said,
---“‘No, do not drag him into this mess – we've already tread on his friendship.’”
I was both confounded and comforted by that comment. Dell closed by saying no one
expected suicide because in Blister's family suicide was unthinkable. His memorial
service will be in two weeks, and the family wished that I would attend but would
understand if I didn’t. He would send details later. That was gist of his message.
I sent back a very short note saying I was deeply sorry, and I would certainly come to
the city for the memorial. My condolences to the Patriarch and the family. Despite the
circumstances of the past few days part of me wanted my friendship with Dell to
continue. I doubted that it could. Our paths had diverged and would continue to diverge
until the paths disappeared in the tall growth of life around us.
Natalia's note contained some of the same information, but some personal stuff as well.
She was leaving soon for California to deal with family matters – apparently the family's
acquaintance with the hedgers had raised some regulators' eyebrows. She expected to
return for Blister's memorial and to finish rearranging her life. She'd thought about
leaving the city but couldn’t decide where to go, at least in this country. Her good news
was that she'd filed the final papers to end her marriage and to clean away all the shit
surrounding it, and she was engaged in conversations about forming a new partnership
with a female friend from Stanford. She hoped to see me at Blister's memorial, and in a
curious twist, did I want her to carry greetings to Sarah?
Natalia's message I had to think about, so I didn’t respond right away. The other
messages had to do with professional matters, and I also left them on hold. Since I had
embraced the idea of a movable study, I decided to work next to the balcony and
gathered up what I needed and placed it all on the table next to my chair. I was close to
being done with the editing the final volume on non-psychotic and psychotic behavior in
light of new advances in understanding brain chemistry. I was not a specialist, but I was
good at choosing the right people to discusses the advances and the setbacks and helping
them to whip their essays into a readable form that might appeal to a larger public.
Indeed, earlier volumes had sold well, both in print and on line. Brain chemistry and
neurological science were the new vogue, and many of the contributors were on the
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cutting edge. I had learned long ago that the most exciting people in research, any field,
were those trying new ideas and approaches, not recklessly but not timidly either. Some
of the essays call into questions basic precepts or concepts that we've been relying on for
decades. I made sure, however, that the limits to current knowledge about neural activity
be acknowledged unambiguously. Further, I had invited several scholars who came out
of the environmental tradition for explaining such behavior have their say as well. No
intent to attack one for the sake of the other. Smart rather than aggressive, attentive-todetail rather than slipshod.
I’d decided that this was the last read-through for my Introduction. I had about ten pages
to finish, and I wanted to keep the revisions to a minimum. These pages dealt in part
with several essays on the subject of pleasure and pain. Some current research had found
that sensation of pleasure or pain could light up the same region of the brain. Years ago
when I was taught the anatomy of the brain, regions were generally assigned specific
functions, but since then overlap rather than specificity was a more prominent theme. On
the one hand, it could complicate theorizing, but on the other, for those us who believed
the search for a unified theory had shifted fundamentally it was an exciting time to be
doing research and reading about it.
I averted my eyes from the computer screen to take note of the ominous clouds hanging
over the city. I recalled my days as a student when we spent hours talking about Freud’s
ego, id and superego: reality, interpretation of reality and policeman. I couldn’t recall a
discussion about the triumvirate in the last decade. It was a useful construct for trying to
explain the behavior of the $18-million-yacht lawyer/thief. To create a different life,
more to his liking, he’d overridden his moral compass, if he had one in the first place.
Having learned that about him, what, then, could we do to make those moral compasses,
which could differ from individual to individual, be more secure for the good of us all?
Not clear. It was assumed that people could be talked into behaving better. Hard to prove
without more rigorous testing, not something that psychoanalysis was set up for.
In combination with current brain research we might get a clearer handle on how a
person’s brain is activated neurologically in pursuit of certain behavioral patterns. Not
unique, the lawyer/thief's behavior. He had plenty of company. Different motives,
different activities, different pleasures, but in that cavity stuffed full of hundreds of
billions of cells certain patterns common to all may merge. A snort of coke, a throw of
the die, a trigger to buy may share neurological patterns, in particular that one needed
more than one ever got. The coke addict, the thieving lawyer, the corrupt financier can
all explain in their own words as under-appreciated driven, and they may all be right as
to how they thought they felt. But, what we’re finding was that pleasure pathways, more
complex than we once thought they were, had some bad spots, and by making some
adjustments in the wiring under-appreciation in all of its ramifications may disappear, at
least in its severe form. I didn’t believe in magic bullets, but I did believe in incremental
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understanding that will somewhere, somehow make repairs possibles. Until then,
however, we’d continue to enforce the laws, as Dell and Marge felt comfortable doing,
that miswiring or not, wrong-doers had misbehaved and deserved to be punished. For
the moment, I was waxing nostalgic that I could only sit on the sidelines, for how long I
knew not, and watch and listen.
In need of a break, I leaned back in my chair, glasses atop my head, sunlight peeking
through the sliding glass door, with the thought that a book on the apologetics of thieves
might be useful. In other words, in their own words, how they explained their behavior,
especially white-collar thieves like the lawyer with the urgent need for an $18-million
yacht. Poor, petty thieves do not pose the intellectual puzzle that rich, egomaniac thieves
do. In the end, though, both want more than they can have, but the circumstances by
which they arrive at the point of stealing can be different.
I could remember, as a kid, stealing a few answers from a neighbor's test or a few dollars
from my Mom's purse and worrying I could be found out and punished, mainly by God.
I couldn’t remember ever being caught, and yet for most of my adult life I lived with the
fear that I was going to get caught stealing, lying, embellishing, etc. As I grew older, I
was ever more vigilant about making sure I paid for everything, never to pick up
something and unwittingly place it in my pocket. This fear even extended to citing
sources for professional articles. I did not want to be accused of stealing other people's
ideas any more than stealing from Gino's Small Mall. So, what breaks down, most
especially among highly-trained and -competent individuals who become thieves? It
wasn’t a sudden realization that they’re under-appreciated. What else was at work inside
the brain that could be found and verified? Society had decided that stealing was wrong,
and few could disagree with that, and yet we're struggling with how to figure out who
robbed and who didn’t. It always struck me that many criminal acts were
incomprehensible because they took place at all. Comedians and talk-show hosts loved
to highlight dumb crimes; they were dumb, and yet they took place repeatedly. What
was amiss? Did criminals unlike others have seriously miswired brains or was being
human the real problem?
Roberto Bolaño wrote in 2666 “in the chaos we are conceivable . . . .” Not very
encouraging. Laws tamped down on chaos, but laws were invented and imposed to be
uniform, even though subject A's actions might spring out of different sources from
subject B's actions. That we should know better was certainly unsustainable and
probably useless, even though I find myself saying it all the time to myself and about
others. Was eradicating evil of any sort a losing battle not only because we may never be
able to map everyone's brain and, even after we succeeded, the brain may change its
mind? Change our minds – my mind, your mind, their minds. What would Beth say
about the idea of eradicating evil now that she'd begun to doubt? In José Saramago’s
novel about suspending death, the secular as well the religious consequences were
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unmanageable. What would happen if evil took a holiday? Or was it more likely that
good took holidays . . . in fact, regularly took holidays.
Having read the remaining pages of the Introduction, having noted a few minor changes,
having decided to leave the thieving lawyer for cocktail parties, I declared the Intro
done. I pulled up the epilogue in which I tried to lay out a reasonable but futuristic
schema for where we might be a decade from now in terms of our understanding about
human behavior from brain chemistry. I had declared it done several weeks ago, but now
I just wanted to be sure I hadn’t missed anything. It had been fun to write, and I made
sure all the contributors had a chance to comment. I had rewritten it several times with
their comments in mind. I declared it done for a second time. Both the beginning and the
ending were done, and everything in-between. After months of composing, tinkering,
composing and tinkering again, it was done. I sent an electronic version to the publisher,
but since I’d been asked to send a hard copy as well, I printed off the revised Intro,
substituted it for the Intro now in the pile of printed manuscript pages, found the box the
press had sent, wrapped and taped it, attached the pre-typed label and walked the box to
the door.
I’d never had trouble letting go of manuscripts, once I had declared them done. This was
no exception, even though it occupied a special place because I doubted that I would
ever again be writing about what I was trained to do. After the past tumultuous days and
weeks, I could feel my spirits on the rise. Mr Bubbly was carefully placed in the fridge
for later.
As I finished, I glanced at the closed sliding glass door. The morning chill had lifted, and
I opened the door half way. Sights and sounds of the city midday. Looking through the
half-opened door, I wondered how much the door knew about me? Did it take note of
my smiles, my tears, my desires, my disappointments? Did it keep a record of my
dreams and my foibles? Would it ever tattle? So much passed through that glass, how
could it not record, review, sort, store . . . photons rode in, photons rode out . . . did they
share information in route? So much time spent in front of an inanimate sliding glass
door made me think I ought to cover it with a curtain or blind or move to the room
“officially” designated my study, although it served as a second bedroom. No. I could
never cover the glass or move to the study/bedroom. I wanted to ride all the photons
streaming through those windows, both ways at once. I wanted to dip into the quantum
world because, as unknowing as I was about how it worked, I had convinced myself it
held all the answers. A blind or curtain might serve as an anchor, make me more
bounded and less afloat, but that was the last thing I wanted. Being more anchored was
something I’d never learned well. I doubted that would ever happen.
I fixed a light lunch, so light I could stand by the hypnotic sliding glass door while I ate
it. I was more lost in thought than in eating. Once my retirement had kicked in, I had
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envisioned a time to reflect quietly about my future. It had been hard to do during the
final months of unwinding from my job. As fate – for the lack of a better term – had
intruded uninvited, I'd had less time than I had expected to reflect quietly about my
future. That quiet, I could feel, was no where in sight. While sipping the warm potatoleek soup and staring through glass at midday in a city I’d known for decades, I was
ambivalent about the turmoil I’d been experiencing instead of the quiet I’d anticipated.
My earlier musings about life ahead were not without focus, however, I’d realized.
Blister's suicide, sad though it was, had pretty much put an end to my involvement with
the Parishes, except for a journey to the City for the service. I could not imagine how
else I might be involved. And, just this morning, the manuscript was finished and ready
to be mailed. It was not entirely out of my hands but mostly so. Sarah, Natalia, Beth new variables but not yet disruptive. The tumult of the last few weeks had sown disarray
. . . disarray that was manageable if not opportunistic. The paths ahead, though filled
with some brambles, were no less visible and in some odd way more inviting. I could
still envision a future that would not replicate my past.
I used to worry, like my worry-ridden Mother, that looking positively on the events in
our lives, events over which we often had little control, could only mean more trouble. It
was tempting fate, and tempting fate assured the fateful. Best not to inquire, propose, or
even act. Hiding under “her” covers, as it were, and hoping it wouldn’t notice her. That
was not how I had behaved as a child, a teenager and even as a young adult. Slowly I
had weaned myself off the fear of the fateful to challenging fate, even inviting fate into
my life in exact opposition to how my Mother dealt with that unknown if not artificial
construct, born out of ignorance but none the less contentious. I came to embrace a style
of living that my Mother never did, never could – an alien world to her as well as my
Father and all the relatives who passed through my upbringing – to dive in, not to turn
away. What they could never figure out about themselves or about me was that diving in
did not automatically mean loss of control. That became the crucial difference. I knew
what I was trying to do inside my own head, and I also knew that awareness was the first
step toward living in the real world.
I was feeling in control right now – was it the warm potato-leek soup that was not quite
the real Vichyssoise or the glass door or fate itself – whatever It was, I had regained a
measure of assurance about the future. Still ill-defined and undetermined, as the future
had to be, but not to be feared or avoided Momentarily discombobulated but not
seriously derailed.
A morning in which the neurons were busy completing circuits. Dell, manuscript,
retirement . . . now Natalia. Tonight with some bubbly in hand I’d let the neurons rest.
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I called up her message and composed a reply in which I reprised my exchange with
Dell. I admitted I wasn’t particularly comfortable with journey ahead, but too much of
my past was intertwined with Blister and his family to make any other decision. I said
I’d be happy to see her again. And . . . I would be, I knew that . . . I said nothing more.
I hadn’t been to the gym for a serious workout in almost a week, and I wasn’t about to
lose another day. Mid-afternoon, I was opening the door to the gym.
The gym was filling up when I arrived. I had been a member for two decades, although
the gym had known several owners. The current owners were a couple with degrees
from the university. They had remodeled the building and expanded the program. Since I
was a free-weight guy, the additions hadn’t much changed my routine. But, the space
was far more interesting to work out in. Big lifters seem to prefer dingy, smelly spaces,
and some had departed, but not being one of them I didn’t share their preferences.
Besides I really liked the new owners.
---“Dr G, it's been a while,” greeted me as I signed in at the desk. Claudia, one of the
owners, was a very handsome woman and, I had learned, over the years, very smart. She
came from a local, well-to-do family with deep roots in the community. She had studied
in France and was headed to law school when she more or less rebelled, dumped law
and returned to the university for a certificate in personal training. There she met
Johnny, who had also rebelled against a professional degree and ended up in the same
certificate program. He, like her, was a fine athlete with a good academic background.
During the past several years we had worked out together, and since they lived in the
same neighborhood, we occasionally enjoyed a libation at a nearby café.
---“Some messy stuff the last few days – not my life, but lives of people I know. I'm glad
to be back. How are you and Johnny?”
---“Isn’t messiness what psychiatrists are trained for,” she asked with a twinkle in her
eyes.
---“Absolutely, and why didn’t I choose something nifty like owning a gym . . . .”
---“Believe me, there are days when I wish I had your skills. How many people end up
at the gym – usually the short-termers – to rein in their personal demons. I want them to
focus on their bodies, and they can’t forget what's on their minds. Is there some magic I
should know about to elevate the one and depress the other?”
---“If I knew such magic, I’d be living a zanier life than I am. Most gym enrollees, the
sane and the inane, haven’t a clue how hard this is. They want instant gratification, and
what they get is pain and more pain. Hence, you have to become a therapist or an
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extension of a therapist that they probably already have. Perhaps, you could combine
therapy and personal training? All it takes is another certificate. You’re more levelheaded and smarter than most of the therapists I know. Ever thought about that? I could
be your Doctor-in-Residence just to give the whole business some legitimacy. And, I’ll
bet, since you'll hear so many juicy tales, you could write one-hell-of a tell-all and retire
. . . .”
---“‘Pump & Pry’.”
---“Or ‘Bench & Couch’.”
---“You really do need to workout, Dr G. The cobwebs are thicker than usual, but come
to think of it, a gym kiss-and-tell is tempting.”
---“I didn’t realize the cobwebs were hanging out in clear view. Let’s see, your Dad's a
lawyer, right? He could save you from lawsuits, most of which are frivolous anyway.
Quite honestly, I’d be happy to drink Bordeaux with you and Johnny and spill all the
beans I've stored up. I could use a change of venue.”
---“Book or no book, we haven’t drunk Bordeaux for a while. I’ll be calling you with a
plan, OK?”
---“Great! I may have another trip to attend to the referred messiness in the next week or
so, but after that I’ll be ready.”
I headed off to the weight rack to start my workout. It was upper body, and after an hour
plus and several hundred reps I was done. I waved to Claudia on the way out, as she was
busy signing up some new guilt-ridden members. I stopped at the Small Mall, and
Jonah, who ran the shops when Gino was not present, cut me some charcuterie and
scooped out some potato salad and added a small torte that he must have seen me
looking at longingly. Jonah reminded me that I was missing out by not eating more rice
and pasta dishes, and I reminded him, as I had many times in the past, that I refused to
join the carbo band. The walk home was leisurely, although the weather was turning
colder and nastier. I had no plans for the evening, and I was glad of that. I needed some
time to myself.XI
As I passed my electronicized card through the slot at the entrance to the building, I
heard
---“Living in your own gated community . . . .”
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I turned and standing fifteen feet from me in the courtyard was Natalia, in jeans and
clogs and a long magnificent coat topped off with a very colorful wrap-around scarf.
Trying to find my legs and gather my thoughts, I started walking toward her with the
thought what the fuck? Finally, I said,
---“Had I known of your arrival, I would have done better than deli food . . . .”
As we embraced, she said,
---“Can you serve champagne with deli food . . . .” as she pulled a bottle from her baglike purse.
---“Well, drinking champagne will be transformative for the food and for us. I assume
since you’re here, you're unafraid to enter my lair. You’re certainly welcome, but I must
warn you . . . .”
She put her arm around my back without saying a word. We walked through the lobby to
the elevator, and a few minutes later we entered my lair. She kissed me on the cheek and
then took her own tour through the Great Room and finally into the kitchen where I was
stashing things. She turned me away from the counter, threw her arms around my neck
and said,
---“I got a hotel room just in case, but I’d rather stay here.” Her beautifully-curved lips
pressed against mine, and the answer had to wait as our bodies entwined.
---“Let me shower before we eat,” I said, “since I prepared for this lovely encounter by
working out for more than an hour.”
---“Let me shower you . . . .” and within minutes we were both inside a shower, roomy
for one but pleasantly crowded for two when Natalia was the guest. Her naked body was
more beautiful than I had imagined.- proportional in every way on a long frame. We
kissed and soon I was inside her – and for the next how many minutes it was a series of
organism as the water cascaded across our bodies.
Finally, she said, “Thanks for making it what I wanted and expected . . . . You’re such a
god-damn gentleman – I was ready our first night, at the bar, on the bar, but you, unlike
me, are a person of scruples. I’ve never had much interest in fucking scruples till now.
Let that be a confession and a warning.” With that she opened the door and grab the
towels, which I'd pulled out of the closet on the way to the shower.
---“Big, generous Turkish towels. You live well. I'm jealous.”
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---“Post-divorce spending sprees that continues twenty years later.”
She took my towel and began to dry my body that was still tingling. I hadn’t quite
absorbed everything that had happened, although I knew damn well what had happened.
And, I knew what was going to happen later. Out of her huge shoulder-strap purse came
a fresh pair of panties, Within minutes we were dressed, mostly dressed, and back in the
kitchen.
---“You have a bag?” I asked tentatively.
---“I do, and I have a car.”
---“You have a car, for a preplanned get-away . . . .”
---“I drove – it was quite last minute. I really don’t have a hotel room. If you proved
inhospitable, I figured I could drive back to the city tonight.”
As she talked, she assembled a meal from what I had bought plus other items from the
fridge including the champagne, which I noticed was not from the $9.99 or $19.99 shelf.
More like the $99.99 shelf. I opened the champagne slowly, and even though it bubbled
over it was just cool enough. My French friends used to complain that too many make
their champagne too cold – it should bubble over a little.
---“This kitchen has never known another boss since I moved in, but you seemed to have
quelled any fears it might have. I must say it's been so long since someone did this in my
domicile that I'm wondering if the workout fried my brain.”
We set up in the Great Room in front of the formidable sliding glass door, although it did
not reveal its reactions. I rescued a second comfy chair from the study/bedroom, and
when I had returned I found that Natalia, having arranged the plates, glasses and napkins
on trays, was chuckling out loud before she said, her head tilted, her smile cunning,
---“I haven’t ever seen black-lacquered TV trays with pink flamingos in my life. Were
they popular in the Eisenhower Years?”
I picked up my champagne, clicked her glass and measured my response:
---“Am I familiar with the Eisenhower Years? Let me think.”
Her cunning smile turned malicious.
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---“You don’t know how accurate you are. When my parents bought their second TV – a
huge floor model with lots of wood and split doors to cover a screen not much larger
than my computer screen – they also bought enough of these trays so all of us plus the
neighborhood could eat in front of the TV. We were the only household in the
neighborhood with a floor model TV. When my brother and I closed down their house, I
salvaged these few surviving trays. Period pieces, don’t you think?”
We sipped our champagne quietly, watching the fading light dance on the glass.
---“Very good, more than very good, the best. ” I whispered in earnestness because it
was true. We settled in our chairs just as the last of the late afternoon light was
disappearing.
---“Did I surprise you?”
---“Have I been noticeably reeling and wobbling?”
---“Except in the shower . . . there you were erect, decisive and on the mark . . . you
know your stuff for what it worth . . . after-sex talk being condemned in most quarters,
but when it works I like to shout from the rooftop.”
---“Unfortunately, the rooftop here is pretty steep. But, let’s agree . . . it was fucking
good. I'm surprised in more ways than I hate to admit. I didn’t expect you. I didn’t ever
expect to fuck you. I've reached that stage in life where I can’t imagine someone like
you having any romantic or sexual interest in someone like me. But, then, once it
started, what the fuck.”
---“To be honest, a much bigger bang than I expected.”
---“Wow . . . memorable words. Dare we toast an even bigger bang?”
---“Click go the glasses – it may happen!”
The serenity was shattered by a crack of thunder.
---“Somehow we missed the arriving storm. I can’t say I'm sorry.”
---“To have had all this delicious food on hand, were you expecting someone or was this
daily fare?” she asked with a less than quizzical expression.
---“Let me see . . . was I expecting someone? Only the usual crowd of noises and sounds
that share my condo. Actually, after working most of the day, I stood near the door in
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front of us and said something was in the making, but I assumed it was something far
less arousing. The food is from a local shop not far whose owner is a talented
businessman and a good friend.”
---“You must introduce me to the purveyor.”
---“Not on your life. You'd hijack him. Gino, who owns something called the Small
Mall, will flatter you and inspire you. And, may I serve you some more?”
---“I've reached my limit . . . and you?”
---“Likewise.”
---“Com'on, walk me to the door . . . .I love this view . . . .there are many cityscapes but
this one is both large and intimate.” She extended her hand and cuddled against my chest
as we took the few steps to the sliding glass door. We could now see the lightening that
sparked the thunder. We were transfixed momentarily as the storm’s rage contrasted with
the interior’s calm.
---“You are a weigh-lifter – it comes through, even when I'm not smack up against your
torso.”
---“A long time ago while I was still playing tennis I took up weights, and it became as
addictive as tennis had been. It's different – lifting puts you in touch with your body in
ways tennis never does. It takes a while, but eventually, if you are serious about the
weights, you can feel what's happening – almost as if you can feel the bursting of the
capillaries. Quite honestly, I love looking at myself in a room full of mirrors –
narcissism unlimited.”
---“I love narcissists because I'm one. I've lifted a few weighs, but I'm totally
unschooled. Aerobics is what I do. Weights, I was told, would make me look bulky.
Bulky is not what I want.”
---“Bulky you are not and should not be. At your age pulling heavy weights would
probably add bulk. Lighter weights would simply firm up the muscles without adding
much if any bulk. Pulling light weights means lots of reps to have any effect, and for me,
and I suspect for you, that’s the epitome of boring. I can’t go as heavy as I used to, and I
can’t stand to do scores of reps. I’m in-between. I go as heavy as I think I should with a
given set of muscles and do as many reps that will take me to failure, i. e., exhaustion.”
She ran her free hand over my shoulders, around my neck and across my pecs. I knew, if
I’d forgotten, why I lifted weights.
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---“You’re not losing any mass, are you? Was I mistaken to assume you’re over 40? I’ve
always preferred younger men.”
The twinkle in her eyes inspired a kiss, soft but enduring.
---“Jack Benny never allowed himself to age beyond 39. I became a convert.”
---“Jack who? Is that pre-Eisenhower?”
---“‘Jack be nimble/Jack be quick/Can I get the/Hell outta this’?”
---“Oh, that’s funny. I expected something more like being hoisted on your own petard
but instead a nursery rhythm that doesn’t quite rhythm.”
---“Spur of the moment. I was hoping that my body or my kiss would distract your
attention from that extra syllable. I failed again.”
---“You forget or, more likely, you don’t know, I’m Phi Beta Kappa, straight A’s
including Will’s plays, sonnets and whatever else he wrote – I think we read the whole
fucking oeuvre. So, over 40, you admit, and getting bulkier, in violation of all known
laws?
---“Atrophy after 40 not in my vocabulary. No sloping male butt for me. A desecration
of the human physique I could never allow. Besides, I like being a gym rat . . . preening
myself from all angles.”
---“Oh, Yahweh, I know I deserve to be punished but must my punishment be this? A
preening psychiatrist? ‘Mirror, Mirror, on the wall/Sloped butt oh please forestall. . . .”
---“Mirror, Mirror, on the wall/Ignore all jealous catcalls . . . .”
Her hand gently muzzled and her look slyly silenced.
---“I was a competitive swimmer in high school and later at Stanford. I worked my ass
off to make it what I’ve observed you’ve admired. I know mirrors and asses, mirrors and
bodies, I’ll never become a gym rat, but I’ll be watching your ass in case you become
neglectful.”
With an arm draped over my shoulder and her head pressed against the other shoulder, I
sensed a change in mood, as if the mirrors in her life had cracked, perhaps shattered.
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---“How long can we manage this before we're back at it?” I heard her whisper.
---“How long do we want to,” I said, as she turned toward the sliding glass door, her
body angled against mine, my arms across her breasts, our hands holding our nearlyempty flutes.
---“Just long enough for me to get a dose of the night sky. A vibrating cock
notwithstanding, this is so peaceful and tranquil, such a contrast to what my life has
been for so fucking long, my ex used to argue with me about the night I saw through our
windows. Why do humans spend so much time disagreeing and being disagreeable? I'm
engaging in self-pity – I grew up in a bickering family and I entered a bickering
profession and I married a bickering man – and I've known bickering most of my life. I
can’t complain, but I will complain that I'm tired of it You don’t deserve this . . . .” as
she slanted her face toward mind.
I could see the tears and soon heard the sobs. I lowered my head to touch hers. The
psychiatrist I had been for so many years told me to let it unfold. Eventually, she pulled
away and stood erect, facing me and nearly as tall as me. She finished her champagne
without taking her eyes off me, moved my flute to my lips, as if to order me to drink – I
did – and took my other hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. How long had it been
since I’d felt a woman’s tears. They felt warm and alive, those emotional tears we all
need to let go but often suppress.
---“Sorry,” she said, “I brought even more baggage than you could have known. It’s
Gucci, not Tourister. That part you’ll like.”
---“Let’s sit on the sofa for a while. Would you like something more to drink, alcoholic
or non.” She moved to the sofa, and I grabbed the afghan and draped it over her
shoulders. She looked gorgeous even when teary.
---“Water, I think . . . .”
---“Quiet, fizzy, ice – in time I’ll know these things.”
She got up from the sofa with afghan covering the upper part of her body. “I'm coming
with you but the answer is probably cold and fizzy.”
Within a few minutes we both had fizzy water and were seated on the stool around the
kitchen bistro table instead of the sofa.XII
---“An afghan – not what I would have expected?”
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---“My mother, again. She made it years ago – a superb knitter and all that – I rather like
it, and it's good for warmth during naps.”
---“A napper are you?”
---“Indeed, from a devout napping tradition.”
---“Mine is just the opposite – napping was somehow undesirable idleness. You couldn’t
make any money napping. Making money was crucial to organizing one’s day. I’m
ambivalent about making money, and I've thought from time to time I should start a new
tradition . . . not making money and napping instead.”
We allowed our eyes to meet, and I wiped away the remnants of her tears.
---“You don’t know me, at least, I don’t think you know me as well as I know you. I've
had the advantage of talking to your friends and reading your web pages. I don’t think
you've had that advantage.”
A further pause and then “I've not been entirely truthful with you. I've told you about my
ex, but he's actually ex-number-two. I've told you a little about my family, but it's much
darker and dirtier. And, then, there's Sarah, again more may not be better. I'm like
Pandora's box, more accurately her jar, open me up so I can flood those around me with
ills and misfortunes – the hope part . . . I don’t know about.”
---“I'm a pretty good listener, and I think you'd make a better Pandora than a box, if I
may venture an opinion . . . .”
---“Thanks, that makes me feel hopeful.”
I waited for her to restart the conversation.
---“First, my family. They’re not technically crooks, but they’re close to those who are.
It's been their living for decades, and they’re smart enough to know only what they have
to know. They provide counsel to people who are less than worthy, at least in my view,
and that includes the recently-arrested hedgers in Blister’s case. It turns out that they
may have had an inkling about the off-shore stuff or may have tendered some advice that
resulted in illegal behavior by the greed-driven scoundrels and perhaps even Blister.
Worse than that they may have tried to erect some barrier to bar a formal inquiry. I don’t
know all the details. That's why I was going to California.”
---“Was and not am?”
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---“On the drive down here I decided I didn’t want to go to California. I’d had enough,
and when I got here, while waiting for you, I called my Father and told him I was
staying out. He said I couldn’t, then my uncle got on the phone and shouted invectives
over my disloyalty. I hung up and turned off the phone. I haven’t turned it back on. My
guess is that the SEC wants some records that they don’t want to give up, but the fact is
the SEC's not interested in prosecuting the lawyers and consultants unless they actually
abetted the physical transfers of funds. My family's never gone far enough to be
indictable abettors, but sometimes I think they have a deep-seated desire to be indicted
so they can prove their worth. You can see why I'm fighting the journey, even though I
know it's unlikely I can resist. I'm a rat if I do and a rat if I don’t.”
---“The worth question again. We were talking about that last night at a dinner party.
Any ideas why they, despite their success, feel less than worthy? There's no worthiness
to be had, if they get caught doing something they know is illegal.”
---“I know. It's one thing to push the envelope – a characteristic of this family – but it's
another thing knowingly to push it to get caught. That's my take. Perhaps, they know
less about what they’re doing than I imagine. Why would they forget they've been hired
for 'technical' advice, not to participate? Perhaps, they enjoy bluffing themselves, but, in
fact, they’ve never crossed the line. I’m in such a quandary because I really don’t know
the score. I’ve been busy with my own life, and that has allowed me to keep my
distance. They’re well acquainted with the shysters and perhaps even Blister, but my
guess is they know less then they want to admit. They need to feel they’re in the know
when they may be residing on the periphery. I'm probably the best lawyer in the crowd,
but being drawn back into the tangled web that is now happening because I am the best
is a burden – I'm tired of it.”
---“Does this mean you’re ready to disown? I suppose that's too strong a term.”
---“Good question. I don’t know, truly don’t know. It's selfish of me, I know, but right
now I need to hear the voice of, to be in the company of, to watch the eyes of someone
from outside the circle – otherwise the circle may crush me, at least that how I feel. You
got chosen because . . . .” She did lock into my eyes as she grasped my hand. It was not
necessary to finish the sentence.
---“You’re following instincts, not the animal-spirit type, but instincts that grow out of
life's experiences. I can’t foretell the risk but I applaud the course . . . .”
---“And I've pulled you onto a path, the end of which it not clear or known. I want to
apologize but can’t. What does that say?” She squeezed my hand again and would not
let go.
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---“Quite honestly I'm not sure. At this point I may just be ambling along the side of the
path with you. What do my instincts tell me? To join you on the path? Neither the path
nor the end is clear to either of us.”
---“Let me make the path rockier. I have a teenage daughter by my first ex. She just
entered Michigan. She wanted no more of the East Coast or West Coast. She's fiercely
smart and fiercely independent. We are close but not intertwined in the way I am with
my family or was becoming with the family of my second. She is driven by a code of
social justice that my recent ex could not bear, given his greed, although he can be
generous and giving, if it serves his needs. She's not much more approving of my family.
I think I would have been a better Mom if I’d thought more about social than legal
justice.
---“Her dad was a full-time sculptor and part-time teacher – I met him when I was a
first-year law student and we married months later. He came from a less-privileged but
not quite poverty-stricken background. He was the source of her idealism. She’s more
her dad’s daughter than mine. She was born during the summer between second and
third year. You may or may not know that third year at Stanford is a piece of cake.
Besides, the law was easy for me, and, in addition, my family could afford to help us
out, even though they did not approve of him. The marriage lasted three years – I was
too rich and too professional for him, and although he had a better life financially than
he'd ever known, he walked out. He subsisted on a few commissions and some teaching
and on what amounts to alimony payments in part because Marta lived with him as
much as me. I would have given him more, but he wouldn’t take it. Marta loved his
prideful disdain of wealth and the power that wealth illegitimately granted people. That
he walked out was shocking for a gal who had pretty much set her own rules with men,
and while friendship replaced bitterness over the years, we were more amiable than
intimate.”
The pause was pregnant . . . in what way I did not know until I saw the tears again. Her
head was not bowed but was fixed straight-away on mine, her dark eyes now a-blur.
---“Two years ago he died suddenly from a stroke. He had never taken care of himself –
somehow it went against his political commitments, as if it were wrong to take time out
to worry about one's health. Grudgingly – I say this with some shame – I came to
understand and in a perverse way to admire what he stood for. His death occurred when
my second marriage was turning messy. I realized that my husband was slowly but
effectively narrowing the borders of my life, and I began to resist, much like, I suppose,
as I had caused my first ex to do. Besides, I had started a relationship that no one knew
about, and I have never revealed. It was short-lived but intense. I realized Mr Secret was
out of a mold I did not understand nor could relate to. I ended it. Someday, my Good
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Doctor, at this moment my dear lover, you’ll fill in the blank . . . we push good things
out of our lives because ____. We’ll fill in the blank later.
---“I seldom cry, have seldom been so weepy, but you seem to exercise some reverse
magic,” she said quietly with smile smothered in tears.
---“For the past two years I have worked hard to earn my daughter's trust – she was
devastated by her dad's death and yet her grieving never became sinking into some
destructive state. The fierceness of her mind and heart used to scare me, but now she had
become my beacon. She attended a progressive high school in her dad's home town and
seldom came to the City. Also, her dad's friends were closer to her than my family and
certainly my ex's family, which had only met her once and immediately disliked her
attitude. Before college – iffy not because of her grades but because she had adopted a
‘bad girl’ style – I took a leave, which I could do because of my stature in the firm, and
Marta and I lived somewhere else away from the world we'd both known for several
months. Needless-to-say this did not help my marriage – my ex, number two, that is,
thought I was nuts – but it saved a mother and a daughter. We have a relationship now
that I think can endure.”
She paused, and, as she did, I thought about Natalia's fierce intelligence and natural
articulateness, which, by every indication her daughter had inherited. I found myself
trying to imagine how her daughter might tell her side of the story or any other story –
with the passion of her father, perhaps, but the clear-eyedness of her mother. I wanted to
say, what would a psychiatrist think, because I was not thinking like a psychiatrist.
--“Marta is already an accomplished artist but she says she wants to do medicine – the
kind of medicine based on service, not money. I suspect she will. Like any Mom I want
to protect her and support her, but I will not interfere with her wish to be independent –
she's been at it a long time.”
I knew what was coming next.
---“One more thing on the list.” She looked at me with an intensity and sureness that had
been building since her confessional began, more dry-eyed than before, with a little help
from Kleenex on the shelf behind me.
---“Sarah. You've not seen her or heard from her in more than a decade. I don’t mean
that as a warning. I'm sure you've thought about how being apart can muddy the waters.
I've already told you she remembers and acknowledges the long silence was initiated
and maintained by her. Her comment was something like 'He'll understand.' I didn’t
pursue it when I talked to her a couple nights ago. My reading is, as you've already
indicated for yourself, reconnecting is not likely. Now that I know you, I should say to
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Sarah ‘What a fool you were,’” and we both laughed, “but seriously you both have
tucked each other away, and while you may think of yourself as more actively keeping
tabs, she too has been keeping tabs. Tabs may be the best either of you can do. I'm
sorry.”
---“I can live with that. I hold out little hope, even after the events of the past week or so.
Madly in love after all these years will not turn the world upside down or our lives back
toward a different time or place. She hasn’t disappeared because I think about her almost
daily, but feeling down and thinking I'm feeling down are two different things.”
---“And that is why you haven’t put any pressure on me to open the channels – that
surprised me at first, not that I wanted to play match-maker, but now I'm thinking the
two of you have independently reached the same point – let it rest without any hard
feelings.”
---“No hard feelings. None at all. That's the strange part. I can think of lots of reasons
why I should be pissed, but I'm not now nor have I ever been. Wishful and perhaps
frustrated, yes, but not pissed. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know. I don’t piss off
easily. It's funny . . . in all the years of my childhood and youth I only saw my parents
pissed once or twice and never with each other. Never. I do not recall a single battle with
words or worse. Something to be said, perhaps, for never talking very much either
between themselves or with us kids. A part of me may always hope for a different
outcome with Sarah, but the outcome that is evident and visible right now and has been
for years is the one that I have to go with. I have surprised myself, quite honestly, that
I'm not more agitated and scheming, but I'm not either.
---“God damn, I'm envious of your childhood. Never knew it was possible. I was born
and bred with arguing genes. It's endless in my family's household and in my ex's –
number two, that is. I keep asking myself, as I learn more about you, ‘Is he fucking
deceiving me?’ My lawyerly doubts creeping in. You may prove to be more of a pain in
the ass than I've found thus far . . . .”
---“Have no fear – I can be a pain in the ass, not because I'm ranting and raving but
because I'm skeptical verging on cynical. On the whole I've not been kicked around all
that much, and I've done little kicking around on my own. The story of my life has a
numbing dullness to it. I can sum it up with something I read years ago: ‘I could go off
the deep end but why should I since I'm on the other end.’”
---“Ha-Ha, some of us seem hypnotized by the deep end.” She got up from the table,
cleared the glasses in one swipe, as if she did this for a living and headed me to the
bedroom.
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Within minutes our naked bodies were intertwined, we were both ready and I entered her
slowly, oh so slowly with her fingers giving support and encouragement, feeling every
ripple, touching every surface, until I could insert no more. She clasped her arms around
my abdomen and pulled me tighter and tighter against her until I could almost feel the
flesh itself meld. And, then she whispered in my ear, words so soft and sweet, languid
and loving, I was hearing the words I felt and I replied with other words I felt, not afraid
to let go and say, more afraid not to because, if I didn’t, the words might burst out in
some embarrassing form. I succumbed. I simply fucked in the arms of this woman. It
was done. It ended on a very high C, after which exhaustion set in, as we relaxed our
embrace and she laid her head on my chest.
After a few minutes with her lying on top of me, my body relaxed, my arms draped over
her shoulders, my eyes closed, my thoughts inchoate, I heard,
---“I want to talk,” and she rolled over onto her back next to me. “I want to, even though
the quiet is so serene, like your presence. I'm a talker and not yet used to serene.”
---“One thing for sure we don’t have to talk about is 'How was it?'”
---“Right you are, unless” – she pulled her face within inches of mine and grasped my
balls – “you have a complaint?”
---“Not a chance.” I then put her head between my hands and, as I moved it toward my
mouth, she moved her body back on top, and our tongues . . . oh, so gently and sweetly,
intersected. As our mouths parted I added quietly “My only complaint is that we waited
so long . . . .”
And now with her fingers waltzing through my hair she asked “Whose fault was that?”
---“The world's.”
---“And whose world are we talking about?”
---“The world run by lawyers and psychiatrists . . . .”
---“I hate lawyers but I think I love psychiatrists.” She put her hand over my mouth and
dropped her head onto my chest as I pulled my arms around her.
We didn’t actually talk for a long time. If there were words, they were in our breathing,
in our embrace, in the newness of our love – love already? Will we talk about that, do
we want to talk about that?
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---“I started falling in love with you the first night we met, and it hasn’t stopped. Don’t
be offended. I don’t know why nor do I know why I must know why. It's my nature,
though . . . to ask . . . why. Not now. This is a loving moment I've not known – well, not
known for a long time. What's worse . . . I have a feeling it's happening to you – pardon
the arrogance – I could feel it, at least that's how it felt . . . .”
---“No pardons necessary. It's a loving moment for me – I'm feeling it, although I'm
always a little behind because I'm a bit battle-weary, romantically speaking, I've
developed a get-lost complex.”
---“Is that an official definition in whatever you call your dictionary of maladies?”
---“Not quite in those words. It may depend on which edition you consult.”
---“Was it always ‘get-lost’ for you, not by you?”
---“No, not always. I'm guilty of doing the getting too.”
---“Me too, mostly me really. I think you've been smacked around more than I've been,
romantically speaking.
She folded her arms across my chest and propped her chin on top of them, and then
looking at me with eyes as black as well-polished onyx softly asked,
---“Why do lovers end up talking about other loves, even the bad ones?”
---“We hate letting go of the crappy times in our lives because we never believe the good
times can last.”
---“That's pretty good. You thought of that on the spur of the moment? Or is it one of
those dictionary definitions you have to memorize?” she asked without moving her eyes.
---“Not original with me, nor has it reached a definitional stage yet. You and I can get
lost in new love, not lost love. I believe it's called ‘pillow talk’”.
---“Pillow Talk was a movie, wasn’t it, that I never saw.”
---“Well, Rock Hudson and Doris Day had to work their way into and through pillow
talking. Doris decided she's heard it all before, as Rock began to woo her.”
---“We sort skipped the wooing . . . didn’t we . . . went straight to the fucking, which I
must say we can burnish without any wooing or cooing.”
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After a few seconds without unfixing her eyes she said:
---“The loneliness I've felt for so long is hanging by a thread – are we permitted to coo
now?”
---“Cooing and cuddling, according to the rules.”
---“I'm out of practice, may never have been practiced . . . but I'm lovin' it. Are we wired
to do this?”
---“The wiring must matter, and if it doesn’t, we'll make it matter.”
We were both quiet, although our eyes were still in locked position.
---“You know, I want the impossible, no, that's not right, I want to make the impossible
possible. That's how I feel with you. I never thought I’d hear myself say that. How far
I've ventured from the world I know best – sit up straight, eat your corn beef, watch your
back side . . . every step, every glance treacherous – I really want to laugh and whistle
and sleep in and go out. Be busy doing nothing. I doubt if you can deliver all that and I
know I can’t.” She unlocked her eyes, turned her head sideways on my chest and pulled
the sheet around her neck.
She added, as if the thought just occurred to her, “I'm also physically exhausted and
satisfied.”
---“I think I can deliver on all but one – I can’t whistle, but we could try lessons, even
learn Swiss yodeling? I'm too exhausted and satisfied but also prepared to stay in this
position forever or short of that until the exhaustion has dissipated and desire has
trumped satisfaction. Desire, exhaustion, satisfaction, an ideal cycle.”
She turned toward me with a big smile, kissed my lips and nodded in the affirmative.
She lay her head on my chest and in minutes was asleep.
I lay awake for a while because I found such deep pleasure in caressing her body, not to
arouse but to comfort and explore. I love this woman and could fall in love with her. At
the moment it was an interlude, like a visit from a put-out Olympian whose revenge was
to hook up with a mortal. I was happy to be the mortal. Maybe, she would give up
Olympus. I could feel my smile, as I moved my hands across the small of her back, both
so soft and smooth I wished I could nest there. Her sleep was still, as still as any I had
ever known, and for fear of waking her I let my hands rest across her back. Her tears that
evening, surprising to me, had been real and copious. Talking and fucking had worked
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their magic. She had fallen asleep so quickly and easily, and the rhythm of her sleep
flowed like an adagio whose tempo should not be altered. Sleep was far from my mind.
Like everyone, she knew where she’d been but not sure where she going. Our brains lit
up, broadly distributed, when we’re asked to describe a place we’ve been, and barely at
all when asked to describe a place we haven’t been. We relied on the past to figure out
where we had been but where we’re going. The future . . . always a risk. Natalia’s
tomorrow, my tomorrow will simply have to unfold. If I had only known her in her
public persona I would have written a different life-story. The story I was writing, the
memory I was saving was worthy of an Olympian.
The next thing I heard was the shrill of my cell and a sleepy Natalia groaned, “What the
hell is that?”
---“My cell,” I whispered. I unlatched myself, raced to the living room, grabbed the
phone and raced twice as fast back to bed.
---“You should abandon that whistle or is that the whistling we're going to learn – God
Forbid,” was how she greeted me. Then she curled up close, and I wasn’t sure she had
yet opened her eyes.
---“See,” I said as I fiddled with the cell, “three things checked off the list – you slept in
and you laughed and you had your first whistle lesson . . . .”
---“And I tasted you on my lips and in my dreams . . . what the hell was the whistle?”
---“Well, it's actually not my phone, it's my FaceBook alert.”
---“Your what?” she roared and the sat up. “You’re into social networking.”
---“Isn’t everyone,” I said meekly, while scrolling through the messages, as the whistle
went off again and then again. I switched the audio to mute before I said to her.
---“Cuddle up here and look at the screen. This might be fun.”
I knew what was happening. Someone's message had launched an avalanche of other
messages. What I didn’t expect was that the first message was about me:
---“Where the hell are you – you've been absent for days.”
And each message that followed basically asked the same question:
---“Has he fallen in a hole or panicked and hid or forgot how to turn on his gadget?”
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And, someone responded with,
---“Or, more likely, given all that Viagra, he had to turn HIS gadget off.”
---“So, what are you going to say? I'm very curious,” injected Natalia. “Especially about
your gadget, which you haven’t turned off for the last 12 hours, which exceeds the
recommend 4 hours by 3 times?”
---“I haven’t a clue. Why don’t you help me? We could send a picture . . . .”
---“Don’t you dare . . . on second thought, our privates spread across the Internet might
solve a lot of perplexing problems.”
---“And create a few, I suspect. However, if we made it a video for instructional
purposes, what could they say?”
I started typing “I'm falling in love . . . .”
She pinched my cheek, rather hard I felt, just as the second avalanche began:
---“Grab him before he hits the floor.”
---“Call an ambulance.”
---“Quick, can anyone get to him?”
---“We can’t count on anything or anybody anymore . . .”
And the list grew for several more minutes. Both of us were hysterical, as we watched
the comments roll in. Finally, I typed in,
---“Stay tuned, and hold all calls.” I shut off the phone, and slide under Natalia.
---“How many people are on your list? Maybe I’d better join to keep track of you?”
---“I don’t know how many, but, yes, you ought to join . . . .”
---“After I've finished with my pleasure.”XIII
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Morning sex always has freshness, never the drive of the night, it is both less
experimental and less rushed. We both found out we liked to be caressed, to be kissed,
caressed again, kissed again, until I slowly entered her and the tempo gradually
increased until climax. For the next hour or so we dozed until finally the midday sun
could no longer be ignored.
After showers, dressing and several Peet's we headed to Small Mall with my little, old,
red, two-wheeled shopping cart. The sight of it led Natalia to wrap a napkin around my
head in the form of a bandana. At the entrance, not surprisingly, was Gino, who broke
out into a huge grin since he was one of the FB participants. He gave Natalia a big
Italian embrace, which she obviously loved. Then, came the introductions. Gino and
Natalia turned and walked toward the Deli. I tagged along behind.
Cici was also in the Deli, and being one of the FB participants, when she saw the
procession, she rushed to my side.
---“You’re alive and well?” she asked, causing Natalia to turn with a puzzled expression
that soon melted into a smile. Further introductions were made somewhere near the
Pasta Bar, which I seldom patronize but was among Natalia's favorites. She
complimented Gino on the food that just happened to await her arrival yesterday. Gino
said that pasta was alien in Dr G's kitchen, causing Natalia to turn her head in my
direction with a sour facial expression and began to pack several of his specialties. C
sidled up to me and whispered “I won’t ever approve, even though I should because
she's lovely. Remember, I know you better than she does,” and planted a kiss on my
cheek and took my hand. “Whether or not you like it, you must go to the Pasta Bar. It's
your duty.”
When Natalia wandered off with C to look at some other items, Gino put his arm over
my shoulder and said.
---“Wonderful, just wonderful,” to which he added with a jab in the ribs, “Don’t muff
it.” And he left.
I slowly walked toward Natalia and C, admiring the swiftness with which everyone
ended up having good feelings. Natalia saw me and immediately put her arm around me.
We finished our shopping, enough for a family of ten, undertook more introductions
followed by more hugs, when C pulled us toward the wine boutique. To our surprise,
something was waiting for us – “Compliments of Gino and Cici,” said Bobbi, the
manager of the shop. After an hour we made our way home.
---“How big is this world of unforgettable characters you've managed to create?” she
asked in a most serious tone.
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---“Beware of my worlds! I haven’t a clue. I meet many people, and it doesn’t often
click. Gino and C are in some ways exceptions because from moment one it was like
this. I usually see them in social or commercial settings, but I've had very quiet and very
noisy evenings with just them or with them and their very big Italian family of farmers
and merchants.”
---“Are they single, married, in relationships?”
--“Gino is gay and also bi. His current partner is a local businessman. C is straight with a
long list of men who have passed through her life. She runs one of the farms owned by
the family, and she and another woman own a car restoration business that specializes in
Porsches. I can’t recite the list of businesses she’s owned wholly or in partnership. The
family includes their parents and their father's brothers, spouses and kids. The brothers
own most of the farmland surrounding the city. It's an agricultural enclave unlike
anything I've ever seen, and it makes money, piles of money. Many of kids including
Gino and C have Ivy-League educations, but business is in their blood and the good life
that it creates is their claim to fame.”
---“And your falling in love is known across the farmland, the enclave?”
---“Indeed it is. Many other family members were following those comments this
morning. That’s life in the Twenty-First Century, isn’t it?” My circle here is small but
intensely loyal – wrist slits and all that stuff.”
---“Let me check my car, which I pulled into your slot since you don’t own a car.”
---“They would have called me if they had a question. ‘They with many eyes’ must have
seen us in the lobby together. That was enough. The concierge's a former cop.”
In the condo we unpacked the cart and the additional bags and then with some ice water
sat at the bistro table, again.
---“Not what I expected, my dear. I’d hoped for some fun and sex, but I'm in a world I
don’t know. In the best sense, let me add.”
---“Moi aussi. I confess I had certain desires but no expectations. I keep pinching myself
mentally. What part of this world don’t you know?”
---“Which counselor role are you playing? I may object because I was born to object.”
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I began to notice a different Natalia demeanor and tone. The jubilation of the last
twenty-four hours appeared to be waning. I was left wondering what would follow.
---“Alas, I have a date in court tomorrow afternoon, and much to my grief I have a
coerced date in California the day after. I sneaked a look at my emails only to discover
against my wishes my Father reserved a ticket for tomorrow evening, his way of
demanding my return. There's time to eat and – let me choose a word I almost never use
– reflect. By the way I'm in charge of the pasta, which you will love.”
Then, verbal silence but physical activity. Within minutes the table was set, looking as if
hours had been spent arranging and cooking.
---“So, fill me in,” she ventured as we sat the table. “I know you’re trained as a
psychiatrist, but I don’t know how you got here. And, since you’re not practicing much
anymore, what is your status with regard to the profession. Or are you spending your
days writing fantasy fiction?”
---“Not far off – more fanciful than fantasy fiction.”
---“Are you doing fiction, really?”
---“I may be moving in that direction. I’m not sure yet. Ideas, but not much writing to
date. Playing around with some stories. My head is full of bits and pieces of stories. All
our brains are filled with bits and pieces of memories as stories – that’s what the brain
does with all that information we process every hour, every day, since it can possibly
store everything . . . it achieves coherence by piecing bits together – and I’m curious
what shape these memories slash stories will take when I try to write them down. Little
at stake for me because I’m not writing to make a living or to change the world, just for
my own pleasure. Professionally – I'm pretty much out of business. No clients, no
appointments, no assignments . . . in fact, just before your arrival yesterday I finished off
the last piece of professional editing and writing I ever expect to do.
“My only continuing contact with psychiatry is through a Web site, owned by a couple
of former students of mine. These students along with a handful of other practicing
psychiatrists have been advancing the cause of helping patients learn to use the tools of
self-discovery and self-examination through Web-based protocols rather than long couch
sessions. Not that some shouldn’t be lying instead of clicking. It has drawbacks and
works better with some participants than others. Building in safeguards has been a
continuing challenge. The idea behind it is that many people who undergo difficult times
can with some minimal guidance find their way out without any long-term psychic scars.
It's controversial, but some early data indicate its working in more cases than
anticipated. Time will tell. It's highly popular because people sign in simply out of
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curiosity. The number of people actually using it for how it was designed is still
relatively small. My role is advisory. I'm consulted but not featured.”
---“Am I reading this correctly – you've more or less run the gamut – I was about to say
you've had it – as a practicing psychiatrist.”
---“That's it – had it – I’d run out of ideas.”
---“So your friends and lovers are safe – you've turned off the lights and locked the
doors . . . ?”
---“Not at all, especially lovers. I keep meticulous records on personal conversations,
fucking patterns and above all odd behaviors. As I said, I may write a novel someday,
and I want the record to be accurate.”
---“I'm not going near that. Good pasta, tell Gino, and now let’s do dessert.”
The American-style pudding was delicious, rich and light. I then fixed some Peet's, not a
bad idea since she would soon be on the road.
---“That loaded question first raised at the bar on our first night . . . now that I’ve been
here, fucked you, met your friends, stared into your eyes . . . why are you still single?
What am I missing?”
---“Loaded, to be sure. Not missing anything, I suspect. I've been asked and asked and
asked . . . and haven’t come up with an answer that's satisfactory to anyone except me.
My own troubled marriage – not so troubled by most troubled-marriage standards – plus
years of trying to help people get through marital strife and discord I've grown cynical
about the institution, at least as a long-term arrangement. It may be, as some
evolutionary biologist argue, we are hard-wired for marriage or some form of permanent
union. I don’t know about the evolutionary matter, but even if we are prone to seek
unions, the hard-wiring doesn’t tell us how to make the match. My own records showed
that most of the people I counseled through a divorce ended up remarrying within a year
or two, and a large percentages of those remarriages ended in divorce. At a gut level, I
suppose, addressing my own disinclination, I don’t want to go through the shit of
another divorce.”
---“I belong to the group you just described, and I would like to join your crusade, but I
doubt if I can, and I wish I knew why.”
---“Indeed, lots of couples stay together for long periods. The dynamics of coupling has
a thousand faces. Even those couples who put in fifty or sixty years together, like my
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parents, and say without hesitation – 'Love since day one' – often have a very poor sense
of what kind of relationship they have been in.”
---“If it ain’t broken . . . right?”
---“Absolutely. If it is working, no reason to try to find out what's wrong with it. But, if
it breaks down, the lack of self-awareness about how it was working or wasn’t working
has to be explored. The revelations can be shocking, sometimes worse than the breakup
itself. I never wanted to emulate my parents' marriage, and while I might have stayed
married forever under different circumstances, once it was over I had little interest in
finding a new arrangement.”
---“And the women you dated? Where did they stand?”
---“As you know, my immoral character has made me seek out younger women, and the
few who would date me never raised the question. I was perfectly content with that. The
truth was that the dating never advanced much beyond casual. With several older
women, yes, the matter came up. I tried to be honest without being hurtful – much
harder than just blurting it out as so many claim to be the best medicine – and in every
case my stance soon ended the relationship. I suspect it would have ended anyway.”
---“So, you’re ideal is relationship without commitment?”
I had to think for a moment. The arrangement of the words was precise, but was it
accurate?
--“It sounds that way and probably is . . . .”
---“After what I've gone through, I'm not sure I can disagree. And, as crazy as it sounds,
I like the certainty of the arrangement, if it can ever be made right. Is that why I'm such
a good lawyer? I'm in love with the structure, the code. You’re more the free-wheeler
than I am. You've lamented for years the loss of Sarah, a woman you never fucked, a
woman who refused to stay in touch, a woman you might not even like if you met her
today, and yet she's still a part of your conscious life. That would drive me up the wall
after while. It doesn’t fit the rules for arranging our lives, and I’d dump it.”
I smiled, as I thought about truth of her observation, and the inconsistency of it because
she's spent many months trying to dump her current ex. I had no doubt Natalia was
destined for another marriage, once I heard her make, after a pause, the “dump” remark.
It foretold her future, I was sadly thinking.
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---“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I’m driven to get it right this time, according to my
rules, of course, and as beautiful and serene as this past day had been . . . it’s been a long
time since I’ve slept like a baby . . . restless though they really are . . . I’m fretting. I
shouldn’t be, but I am. What a fuckin’ fool I am. Not able to let go of what has made a
mess of my life. A fuckin’ fool with a fuckin’ mess for a fuckin’ life.”
Her face fell into her hands. I expected tears, as I reached for her arm. I couldn’t help but
recall how many clients I had who used the exact same excuse or rationale – to get it
right this time – a deadly concoction.
The tears failed to appear this time. That would not be getting it right. We spent the rest
of the afternoon just gabbing. Cells went off, dirty dishes lay unattended to, time hardly
mattered.
We compared upbringings. Hers was certainly more privileged than mine, but there were
interesting overlaps.
---“I remember, a girl who would only pull down her panties if I picked up a turd from
her pony – a hardened one – and I don’t remember what I did, although we never came
close to making love,” I recalled for her.
---“Oh, child's play. I agreed to kiss his 'thing-a-ma-gig' and, when I did, I couldn’t
believe I wanted more. We never got around to fucking, thank god,” she added.
Her parents never quit talking, mine never started.
---“The dinner table was like a riot. Everyone had an opinion, but no one understood
relinquishing the podium. So, we would get angrier and angrier, even though no one had
any idea what we were angry about. Someone would finally ask, 'What the hell is the
point'. When I ate at friends' houses – also rich, Jewish and articulate – I had to learn to
take my turn. I suppose the cauldron for my adversarial nature was our dining-room
table.”
---“And our table was a testament to silence. Almost nothing was discussed, and the
common remark was, after being served four vegetables, beef, pork or chicken, jello and
pie, ‘What am I supposed to do with these leftovers?' More food, especially vegetables,
than a family of five could eat.”
---“Lots of vegetables . . . that’s a good thing, according to today’s nutritional police,
isn’t it?”
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---“I suppose so, although I never became a enthusiast for vegetables until I started
cooking on my own and I discovered the joy of crispiness over mushiness. Everything
was overcooked. I can imagine – what the truth was I don’t know – after a long day in
the mines or the fields you didn’t want to have to work very hard at eating.”
---“Novel explanation I’d never thought of.”
---“Nor had I till this moment. Anyway, there were leftovers, but I have no idea where
they went because they never showed up the next night. There would be a whole army of
new vegetables, provoking the same question. That was just about the extent of the
table-talk though. My Dad almost never said a word. I'm not sure I ever thought about a
different family table until I was a young adult and long gone from home. Even the
dozens of relatives that showed up for holiday dinner engaged in little table-talk. I'm
assuming all their table conversations were clones of ours. Perhaps, a word about the
weather, a new pain here or there, the muskie or pheasant just missed, and that was just
about all I ever heard my relatives talk about. My brother once commented that, after he
married his wife of Slovakian background, he couldn’t believe how much talking went
on all the time, not just at the table but throughout the household. They were not British
Isles nor Protestants. Neither of us has carried the conversational code of our parents and
relatives into our adult lives.”
I was trying to read Natalia's facial expressions. She seemed to be listening but lost or at
least, simultaneously engaged in what she was hearing and what she was thinking. This
venture was ending on a different note from what it had started. I decided to continue.
---“I'm not sure what I expected when I finally had a career and a marriage. I was not the
go-getter that many of my new-found peers were. I knew I was in a circle fundamentally
different from what I’d known growing up, not a circle with which I was displeased, but
I was not always surefooted about how to make the adaptation. Only my younger
brother and I and one other cousin ever got college degrees and all three of us went on
for advanced degrees, mine being the most advanced. In college I met and 'went steady'
with women – Judith, Sandy and Helen – unlike any I’d ever known. I could have gone
on dating smart, beautiful women, but then my ex . . . she hijacked me . . . and, of
course, that fed my ego in a different way that caused me to think this was it.
---“By the time I finished med school almost nothing of my upbringing remained visible.
I'm not sure that my parents or relatives knew who I was. I had their name but nothing
else. My career flourished, and I thought my marriage would but it didn’t. All that
training in psychiatry seemed to have no bearing on how to figure out my personal
world. It left me as much confused as edified. I finally quit trying to analyze my own
marriage, began the process of unlocking and letting go and eventually ended it. You
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know this story from the late night chat at the bar in the city whose name I can’t
remember.
---“My parents were aghast, even though my Mother never truly trusted my ex. They
didn’t understand divorce any more than they understood psychiatry and how I made a
living from it. If I’d been a regular doctor, they could have identified me with the
neighborhood doctor who used to show up at our house with his black bag filled with
rows and rows of vials of pills – who knows what they did – and a few commonplace
instruments. I think they died sadly because they had so many unanswered questions
about two of their children, their eldest, who followed none of their ways and was
seemingly successful, and their middle son who followed their ways and died an
alcoholic. The youngest took the middle road and in the end was better able to care for
them in their declining years than I, the physician, was, although my brother and I talked
continually about the state of their health. Aspects of that long story can still sadden
me.”
After pause Natalia took my hand and once again fixed those jewels for eyes on mine:
---“It's almost time for me to go. In bed and around this table, you’re the best. This stuff
is hard for a well-off Jewish princess from the laid-back West Coast to deal with, and yet
you've managed to deal with the shit in people lives all you adult life. My upbringing
was more pressurized than yours, and yet I’m not sure it ever prepared me for the
pressures of the world I found myself in. All the sophistication I knew and admired
made me think I was ready for anything. How ready was I? Your upbringing was quieter
and narrower but also courser. I keep living with some idealized code for an idealized
world created around the family table. You had to make your way; I in all my arrogance
I knew the way."
There was a purposeful pause. Natalia locked into my eyes agin. No tears but utter
intensity, as if another person inside her had taken command.
---"As much as my head, and certainly for 24 hours, my heart might want to scrap the
code, denounce the past, change the course, I'm stuck. 'Getting it right', no matter the
odds, rules.
---"I wish I weren't saying this, I wish I could make myself say something different,
something that will not destroy what I should want and somewhere I do want . . . I have
the feeling I've said enough . . . you know what has happened and what might have
happened and why it can't happen. One thing I’ve often thought about in my adult life
was that I was not prepared for the rough-and-tumble that can engulf our lives. A family
constantly talking, in motion, arguing did not give me the tools or the experiences with
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which to transition to the world I found myself in. I keep thinking I could win the table
arguments but not the arguments that counted. The personal struggles, not the legal ones.
---“What I haven’t ever come to terms with,” Natalia continued after a quiet moment
during which her fierce eyes turned sad and locked on mine, “what I need to do, what I
want to do, I can’t. I’m stuck with an array of expectations that when pursued turn
against me. Somehow, you learned to live in a world you were not a part of, but I can’t
let go of the world I was a part of.” Natalia bowed her head and removed her hands from
mine. How often the redemption we seek became the condemnation we tried to escape.
---“I suppose I had to learn to live in the world that you actually came from, if I were
going to succeed. Intuitively, I prefer your world to mine, but it had to be adopted
because it was not bred. I remain a mongrel, though, never fully adopting yours or
renouncing mine. I realized this some years ago, while working with a patient whose
background was similar to mine and whose adult life had been a battle to understand the
world he had left and the world he occupied, a world that demanded more sophistication
than he could muster . . . I realized that there was a carry-over for me too. I would call it
a heavy dose of skepticism and uncertainty. You and I occupy the same part of the world
stage, we are educated, well-read, analytical and ego-driven, but what pulls me back is
the memory of a different world that operated on fear, doubt, failure, blame. Do we ever
escape the gene pool?”
The question that followed was totally unexpected and seemed out of place.
---“What about children? You've never mentioned any.”
---“None to mention. We tried but failed. The urge was not so strong that being unable to
conceive led us to adoption. The fertility business was just getting started. I’ll anticipate
your next question – would it have made a difference? I simply don’t know. Another
moral failing, I suppose, in that once it was clear she couldn’t become pregnant without
great risk, I was ready to move on to a life without children. We seldom, if ever, talked
about it after the decision was made. I don’t know how she feels about it now. I can’t say
I have any regrets because it’s hard to be regretful about what was not possible. That's
the sum of it."
It was time. We embraced. It was a good time, we both said, but no assurances were
expressed. I thought to myself after she'd left and I was cleaning up, I couldn’t
remember ever being with a woman in which the twenty-four hours had gone from high
to low so smoothly and unerringly. I knew I had had modest expectations with regard
Natalia – her visit was a total surprise – but I decided she had grand expectations that I
could not deliver on. Once again, she took leave knowing more about me than I knew
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about her. Somehow, I never manage to ask the right questions of the women I have
feelings for, whether I fuck them or I don’t.
I finally sat down to check the messages that had piled up. I turned on the computer for
the first time since Natalia had arrived. I checked the cell first. A text message from C,
reiterating, in case I'd become preoccupied, the invitation for the annual farm fall
festival on Saturday. Lots of things pumpkiny. It was the end of the harvest and these
parties were great fun. C told me my new belle was invited. I texted back it had long
been on my calendar, as she well knew, along with a regret that the person of much
interest was heading back to the city right now. Within minutes C sent a message that
consisted of “Oh” and “You'll be picked up.”
An email from Dell that showed up on both the phone and the computer I read on the
latter. A few more details about the memorial but no definite date yet. It would be very
small and in the city rather than at the estate. Nothing else. I was learning to live with a
much less communicative Dell. I emailed back my schedule was flexible, to keep me
informed and wished him and Marge well. Nothing else demanded my immediate
attention. Not in the mood to be electronically connected further, I packed my bag and
headed to the gym.XIV
On the next Saturday at 1 pm with a small bag, since I was informed the day before that
I was staying overnight (when you don’t drive you tend to follow the commands of
others), I was standing outside my building when I saw Gino's Mercedes pull into the
driveway. It stopped next me, and as I opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, I
heard “hello” in voice I did not expect. I turned abruptly only to come face to face with
Beth.
---“How are you, other than surprised?” she said, as she turned the car around. Although
I hadn’t driven for years, I was an able driver in my own day of various vehicles
including big cars, little cars, dump trucks, farm tractors, even small bulldozers, failing
only at motorcycles, notwithstanding Sarah’s best efforts. I detected immediately she
was clearly at home in Gino's “pride and joy”, and I decided to settle back and enjoy the
ride.
---“Surprised, to be sure. I didn’t know that Gino ever lent his Silver Fox to anyone. You
seem quite comfortable.”
---“I've driven lots of machines in my life, and Gino must have assumed I could handle
this one. Rest assured this is not my first time at the wheel. Busy people need gofers. I
make a talented gofer, especially when it comes to driving $100K vehicles.”
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---“Do you enjoy it?”
---“Not really. I prefer a noisy tractor or a bedraggled truck. But, it is gem to drive. I've
never taken a long trip in it, but I'm afraid I’d be asleep in a matter of minutes. It would
have to drive itself.”
---“You’re just slightly ahead of your time. I've read they will soon drive themselves and
you can sleep.”
---“I can’t imagine ever having so much confidence in a self-driven vehicle that I want
to sleep.”
---“To shift gears – excuse the pun – are you still working for Gino and Cici?”
---“I am. I'm busier than I've ever been. I never paid attention to how much land was
contained within all the farms. I'm aware now, since I've taken on additional duties. I'm
now a two-check person. I receive a small payment from them for the other work.”
---“Will that jeopardize your employment with your family?”
---“Not really. They don’t actually know about it. Most of the money for my service is
paid to my family, and then I'm paid my regular salary. But the extra helps. I was never
paid very much partly because I lived at home. I'm not paid any more now, and I've
exchanged my bedroom at home for a room in the bunkhouse.”
---“Any temptation to go back to the old mode of living?”
---“At times. I was thinking about that last night. In my prior life any temptation would
have caused me to invoke an image of the devil at work. Now, I have to content myself
with simpler explanations. I expect to have doubts and frustrations. I guess more than
anything I miss the comfort and certainty that goes with being lined up with some code.
I haven’t been able to deal with the ultimate notion that there may be no deities,
therefore, no codes. I suppose that can wait.”
---“I think so. I don’t know how much comfort it is to say that thinking in steps instead
of leaps may be easier in accommodating all the changes. With changes like these
people can try too hard to get to the next stage too fast, and that only makes them more
anxious and unsettled. Out of curiosity, how has your family or friends or associates –
people inside and outside your religious circle – reacted.”
We found ourselves with more time than we might have expected to talk. Our drive was
slowed because of Saturday-afternoon football traffic.
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---“The reactions have varied, and they have also surprised me. With a few – actually
more than a few – I'm a traitor, as if I'm walking off with company secrets. I come from
a big family and have support from sibs, but even with some family members I feel as if
I've been shunned, an old religious custom. For casual friends and associates not much
change. One troubling realization that comes with a change like this is how much of my
life was confined to the church. It's hard to get used to the big world. Lots of things that
less religious folks have to decide on their own, I now have to decide on my own too.”
---“Was there a boyfriend?”
I asked this question, when we were sitting at a light, and she jerked her head in my
direction, as if truly surprised at the question. Then, she slowly turned back to her
driving position. I wasn’t sure I would get an answer. I knew I’d asked the right
question.
---“Yes. Not a question I expected, at least not yet.”
I looked straight ahead to allow her time to think. I had surmised from the beginning of
our conversations at the dinner table that this was more complicated than just Beth. I
didn’t know in what way, but I suspected I would soon find out.
---“I'm not sure I'm ready . . . .”
---“No reason to pursue it if you’re not . . . we'll find other topics to keep the
conversation going.”
We rode along in silence for a minute or two. It felt awkward but was necessary. Then,
she began without any further prompting.
---“I was involved with a man, younger than me. This was the longest relationship I’d
ever had, and I've not had many. The only man I ever really got to know. It won’t
surprise you to hear me say that in a highly intensive religious world dating has more
cross-currents than most of us can deal with. I can’t say I was ever jealous of the sec
kids, but the rules for kids in the sec and relig worlds are different. The desires, I might
add, are not.”
---“I fully understand, since I passed my teen years being forbidden and trying to figure
it out.”
---“My body is a problem,” she continued in language that caught me off-guard. “To be
honest, I wasn’t a virgin when we started dating. I had a brief fling with an older man
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when I was working in his coffee bar. It was a Christian coffee bar with Jesus motifs and
inspirational sounds, but it turned out the owner, who had several other businesses in
communities around the city, had his own interpretation of Christian love. Anyway, we
slept together a couple times under the guise of visions and commands from on high,
and then it dawned on me what was going on, and I bolted. I realized how awful it was. I
still don’t know much about a sexual relationship, but I know what I don’t like. I told
him to get lost, and I quit the coffee shop. I worried about a breakdown that never came,
not even verging on a breakdown. Having sex, then rejecting his overtures and threats
and finally assuring myself I was sane, I felt emboldened, if that is the word.”
---“Indeed, it is the right word. You grabbed onto life rather than retreating from it.”
---“For me it was complicated not only because the religious angle seemed screwed up,
but also because my body was at the center of his Hallelujah moment. He told me over
and over that God meant for beautiful bodies to be served. I knew I had an attractive
body. I tried not to dwell on that for fear of enticing the devil, but I could not ignore
comparing myself to others. I was reminded constantly that my body could be my
downfall – even my java lover proclaimed he was assigned to protect my body – and
while I accepted the advice to avoid any temptation lacking a religious foundation, I also
suffered because I couldn’t do with my body what others did. I worried and fretted, I
tried to hide my breasts and flatten my butt to forestall temptation. I repeated over and
over about the joys of living in Christ in order to forget the temptations connected with
my body. I was living in a nether world until the java man intruded. The word carnal had
meaning for me beyond the religious context. His carnal satisfaction – carnal is a word
often cited as unacceptable in our church life – was said to be a blessing. It was anything
but a blessing for me. He wouldn’t quit, and finally, I warned him, if he ever called or
approached me again, I’d spill the beans. I figured because he was a prominent
churchman slash businessman he'd back off after I’d issued the warning. On one level I
felt better almost instantly, but on another I was struggling. It was different now that I’d
lost my virginity. Had I unknowingly succumbed to the ways of the devil? It would be
easier if I could absolutely blame him. I succumbed, and I knew I was partly responsible
for my succumbing because I had desire that welled up.”
She paused, another line of traffic, and my experience with such cases told me that, if
she continued this conversation, I was to find out her struggle was between desire for
sex and fear of God.
---“I couldn’t get love-making out of my mind, but I vowed to God that my penance was
abstinence until marriage. Then, with my late boy friend, I found myself on sexual thin
ice again. He too had Christian argument for the appropriateness of sex between two
people who loved God devoutly and believed they were the witnesses to God. As
overcome as I felt at time, I could still answer ‘marry me then.’ It's evident what his
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response was. I'm not sure I would ever have married him, but I was brokenhearted
when he quit the relationship. I was proud I had been adamant, and even though he was
by every measure a fumbler, I was learning more about myself than I had expected. The
funny thing – this may be hard for a nonbeliever to understand – I didn’t feel that God
was angry with me. I even began to ask myself why expressing one’s desire, even one’s
carnal desire, was so wrong. You can imagine the whirlwind I was in, as I vacillated
between holding firm and letting go. ”
---“Maybe your discontent was less sexual and more general disgust with his overall
behavior?” I was wondering how far this conversation would go now that we were on
the open highway and within minutes would be at the farm.
---“That's a good point because I remember toward the end, as I was trying to hold
myself together, I realized he'd began to pull the 'I am the captain of the ship' crap on
me, very much a part of our religious world, the same stuff I’d heard from the Coffee
Baron, and finally I knew I could deal with it. I made everyone mad at me because I
literally and loudly began to raise questions about this Christian enterprise of which we
were all a part, and you have a pretty good idea what happened after that. It's hard
picking up the pieces and trying to glue them back together, but, at least, I know how I
got here even if I don’t know where I'm going.”
Just then we turned onto the driveway to the farm.
---“I think you need a break from any more revelations to near strangers.”
I could see the smile on her face and a slight nod. It's turned out to be a magnificent fall
afternoon to amble through the corn fields, and that's what we all would be focusing on.
I knew there was more to the story than I’d heard, but I also knew when to call a halt.
---“I'm up for checking out the corn stalks and looking at pumpkins. How about you?
Thanks for picking me up. And, don’t doubt your own perseverance. It may have the
qualities of granite,” I said as we opened our respective doors.
In seconds C was at the car.XV
---“Where the hell have you been? Off the beaten track? You, not her, she has a moral
compass you've never had.”
I saw Beth bow her head with a bigger than usual smile, almost a laugh. Then, before I
could address C's alleged outrage, Beth said “How did you know I’d lost my compass?”
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After C recovered, Beth added “Football traffic,” and C hugged and kissed both of us.
We walked arm and arm to a crowd gathering around the open-fire. Beth disengaged,
walking off toward the bunkhouse, and I thought her natural long strides were strikingly
confident. She was taking measured steps into a bigger and less secure world. I always
felt a bit drained after a conversation like that, partly because I had gone through my
own awakening to the real world and after all these years I was still startled at how much
detail I could recall about having once tried to live a very religious life. I’d quit talking
about it. I'm not even sure how many ever knew how deeply I was into the religious life.
I was not an evangelical or a charismatic, although I had attended tent meetings with
friends who were on the periphery of the established religious community I’d grown up
in. I remembered prayer sessions where we were encouraged to describe visions we had.
I never had any visions so I made them up. Eventually, the whole thing began to
crumble. I wasn’t sleeping with anyone; I just wasn’t believing anymore. Beth was in
the same boat – it wasn’t working anymore. I’d always been active outside the church,
but by her own testimony Beth had almost no life outside of home and church. Without
knowing, I was willing to bet she had been home-schooled. Gino had said she was a
dancer, and I had to wonder how that was accommodated. She lived in a gated, religious
community for the purpose of keeping out evil and preparing for the next life that was
unlikely to exist instead of living this life that did exist, as she now had to learn. As she
walked away, I was left wondering.
I knew almost everyone around the fire. I hadn’t seen Gino and C's parents and the
several aunts and uncles in some time so I found myself in catch-up conversations.
Soon, Gino and his partner joined us, and the banter gained intensity mostly about how
to screw the capitalism of Wall Street. For a family of capitalists – some of the best at
producing stuff and making money from it . . . people who were rich but didn’t have to
be richer – I was always amused by these conversations. I’d come to understood what
capitalism they were talking about. It was closer to Adam Smith than the capitalism of
the maniacal Wall Street wizards for whom they had utter scorn. More directly, it was in
part capitalism born out of a Catholic social justice and in part out of a family fiscal
ethic that they financed themselves and had no use for bankers individually or
collectively. I always wondered where they kept their money. Their mattresses weren’t
big enough. I tended to listen rather than participate in these conversations, although
from time to time an uncle would demand I give some analysis of the modern capitalists'
psychoses.
C stuck a drink in my hand and pulled me away to join another group that included some
of her friends. More people showed up, mainly the post-football-stadium crowd. These
fall celebrations were extravaganzas, never to be missed. Then, food began appearing,
plate after plate of hors d'oeuvres. Since Gino owned a catering service, the food had
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arrived in a large refrigerated truck plus several trucks loaded with tables, chairs,
blankets, sweaters, and who knows what else. And, if it had rained, the barn was made
ready as a substitute venue.
While they were setting up for dinner Gino and C's Mom walked over to me, hung her
hand over my should and said,
---“Com'on, let’s do our annual cornfield trek.”
We excused ourselves, and Sophia and I headed off toward a nearby cornfield. We had
made this trek for the last three or four years. Sophia was the first of the gang I’d met.
When I moved from the clinic to the dean's office, she showed up at my office one day.
She’d had a long association with the medical school, as a fund-raiser among other
things, because the hospital had treated her ailing parents for many years. She knew
many of the doctors, her nephew and niece by marriage were on the faculty . . . her niece
having been hired by me . . . and yet I’d never met her until that day she arrived without
an appointment in my anteroom. My secretary knew her and made sure there was a slot
for her to see me briefly.
Her excuse was to talk about fund-raising, but her need had to do with her family. She
felt uncomfortable using her standing in the medical-school community to appeal for
help, but in a few short minutes she soon laid out what was troubling her and her family.
She said that she and Sergio were baffled and angered by Gino's sexual struggles. There
had been numerous family discussion among all the sibs and their parents plus the
extended family. Sophia and Sergio were in many ways ideal parents, but many of the
final decisions on child-rearing had been left to Sophia. Sergio had always stood by her
when the kids objected, but the controversy surrounding sexual orientation had left both
them drained and out of sorts. Sophia tried to talk Sergio into discussing these matter
with a professional, but he had balked. However, he made a deal, as he was accustomed
to doing. Unless the counselor demanded his presence, he would listen to Sophia about
the counseling sessions and follow her lead. She came to me because I was known to
people she respected. She did not ask me to become her counselor – she was seeking a
recommendation – but I became her counselor, and while I didn’t meet Sergio or Gino or
Cici for months Sophia reported regularly that Sergio stuck by his agreement.
Sophia and I met almost weekly over some months. It was a memorable series of
sessions, not just because I was learning so much about this fascinating family, but
because I was challenged to try to keep their successful marriage in perspective as I
remember how mine crumbled. Crumbling marriages were more the sujet du jour than
working marriages. These sessions proved to be my counseling Sophia and myself. We
both ended at a better place, and later we allowed ourselves to become friends. I could
see from the outset that in the case of Sophia the resolution was not far off. She was
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smart and sensitive and had already made up her mind that she was not prepared under
any circumstance to abandon anybody. She was seeking adjustment, not abandonment,
and since Sergio was faithfully following her lead I had no reluctance to lay out certain
strategies that would quicken rather than delay resolution. She was determined to
understand what was happening and to find a way to adjust to a reality she had never
anticipated but surely wanted to accept. There were some false starts, but eventually she
found the right combination (and without knowing for sure, I presumed that Sergio had
too) and the sessions came to an end.
Months passed. I’d been away at another university where I’d met Sarah. Once I
returned, Sophia called to ask if it was appropriate to invite her former shrink to a family
celebration, more appropriately a family reaffirmation. I asked how she and Sergio and
the kids were doing, and she said that there were still bumps but all they were were road
hazards. On the basis of what she said, I decided there was little risk in attending, and I
said yes.
Gino picked me up, and that was the beginning of our friendship. When I arrived at the
farm house, I was utterly overwhelmed by the size of the extended family and the
openness with which I was received. I had always wondered about Sergio's reaction to
his wife confiding in a shrink, and for a few minutes after I was introduced to him we
stood off in the corner of the room where he told, eye to eye, if I ever needed anything I
was to come to him first, anything, he kept repeating, sometimes in Italian – qualche
cosa, se avete bisogno di qualche cosa – nulla, se mai bisogno di niente – a conversation
that still resonated in my mind.
It was a wonderful celebration, reaffirmation (with the parents and kids reading passages
they had composed together), and, in addition, I learned how talented this huge family
was. C drove me home, came in for a drink and we talked for almost an hour about her
major in literature and philosophy at Columbia and her indecision about her future. She
loved the intellectual life, but she loved the farm even more and, like Gino, was
determined to find her place. As close as I was to Gino, partly because I saw him several
times a week, C became my soul-mate.
After my friendship began with this family, Sarah and her boyfriend showed up to attend
a week-long class to certify for aerobics, something they taught to make some additional
income. They spent a week in my condo. Having these lovers in my second bedroom
was a test, and somehow we got through without any scars. C and her Mom played a big
role. They knew a few details about my feelings for Sarah, and what I didn’t tell them
they could intuit. They put on a big spread for Sarah and her boyfriend at the end of their
class and before they drove back. That was the last time I saw either of them. I had no
idea what happened to the boyfriend. Sarah’s life thereafter I could follow from a
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distance. C was privy to some of my inner feelings, even though I kept discussion about
Sarah to a minimum.
Several years later, C went through an unexpected period of deep depression, triggered
by a miscarriage and a divorce. She had moved back to the farm from the city and was
under the care of another psychiatrist outside the university. The psychiatrist had
assumed that the depressed state was temporary and the drugs would help stabilize the
situation to allow the patient in counseling sessions to begun a recovery. Sophie insisted
on a second opinion and asked that I be allowed to evaluate the plan since my research
had been in the area of anti-depressants. I talked to the attending psychiatrist whom I
knew slightly and, then, to C whom I knew better. Perhaps, I knew her too well to be
called in as a consultant. Finally, I agreed to undertake the evaluation with the proviso
that if it become problematic I’d withdraw.
After reviewing the records and having a two-hour session with C, I came to the
conclusion that the drugs being prescribed should be deferred. I didn’t necessary
disagree with C's psychiatrist's reasoning in general terms, but rather I detected signs
that despite C's anguish she was slowly and fitfully taking steps on her own. After C's
visit, I called her psychiatrist and said that I thought the counseling was working and
simply needed more time. She said that she thought so too but then she was worried
about the regressive signs that she had clearly laid out in her report. We talked about
those for a few minutes, and then we agreed to put the medications on hold for a month
except for a mild sedative to help her sleep. It took more than a month, but enough
progress had been made that we could agree to put off the medications for another
month. And, so it went until C emerged with her head and body intact. At that point
friendship was the sole basis for my connection to this family. Over a delicious meal we
all agreed my medical role had been retired.
---“I hear you’re falling in love,” Sophia said after we walked a few yards and were
about to enter the corn field. I was not startled by her question. We had no need to play
catch up since the last cornfield conversation. We were not in touch daily or even
weekly, but I was a part of the network of this family so Sophia knew about my comings
and goings. We knew where to start this time, the next time and the time after. She also
lit one of her very thin cigars, which she had smoked for decades and continued to
smoke, despite her doctor's plea to quit.
---“The pumpkin patch is full of romantic rumors,” I replied, while also declining a
cigar. She knew I had never quite gotten over smoking, even though I had quit thirty
years ago, and she was ready to put me to the test as often as possible.
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---“Still, one of the city's most eligible and cankerous bachelors? Who else has failed as
often as I in trying to find you a mate,” she said with some delight and a muffled
chuckle.
---“Thanks for reminding me . . . .”
---“That I do every year without fail,” she said as she slipped her arm through mine. “So
what's the scoop?”
I gave the short version but without some of the salacious details, and she listened to and
laughed at my narrative.
---“I won’t ask what's the doctor's opinion is since every time I ask, I get the same
response – the doctor is out. It strikes me, however, that everyone wants something to
happen except for my daughter who want you to stay a bachelor forever until you’re
both so old you can without provoking insidious remarks become an odd but old
couple.”
---“Well, that certainly complicates matters. I enjoyed Natalia's company, but she's a bit
of a mystery, and, to pick up on your comment, we might make an odd couple”
---“Code for a troubled relationship,” pronounced Sophia, without hesitation.
---“Our last conversation before she left was revealing because we got into a discussion
of what makes our respective lives tick. I was somewhat taken aback, as I think she was,
at some fundamental differences. These things usually come later rather than earlier, and
I'm not sure how we went from the gooy-eyed love-making to our own Official
Inquisition. I haven’t heard from her since she left, and I'm not sure where she is.”
---“Let me guess – you’re too liberated from the mores and customs that most of us live
by?”
---“I'm afraid you’re on the mark. How did you figure that out with so little
information?”
---“How long have we known each?”
---“That's the answer, isn’t it?”
---“I'm afraid that’s the best I can do, but I know a first-rate psychiatrist I can
recommend . . . ,” and then without waiting for any response she continued, “You saved
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this family, Dr G, you know that and I love you for that,” and she kissed me on the
cheek.
Suddenly, Sophia broke into laughter as she pointed to a misshapened pumpkin, round
on one side and flat on the other.
---“It just decided to quit. The plight of the pumpkin and the human overlap,” she
intoned as we continued our walk. At the end of the field was the farm's pond, and we
sat on one of the benches.
---“I spent so many hours here during the crisis and can still recall with a certain scary
vividness the dozens of skies I sat through. But, I digress, what's your next step, as if I
don’t know. I had a dream in which you were leaving, but that's all I got. Leaving for
where and for how long?”
---“I have plenty of dreams about leaving. One must have sneaked into your world. It's
complicated . . . .”
---“Your common excuse, my dear . . . .”
---“I should let you try to figure out my future . . . .”
---“Not my forte, besides dinner will be served in thirty minutes . . . .”
---“Believe it or not, in a life already teeming in uncertainty, Sarah reappeared, not
physically but as a phantom . . . .”
She turned abruptly and blurted out, “How?”
---“One of those degrees-of-separation – Natalia's cousin is married to Sarah.”
---“Married! Sarah's married! Did you know that?”
---“I knew about the marriage, and I also knew she had graduated from vet school. I
didn’t know she was living at Lake Tahoe . . . .”
---“Good grief, does this degrees-of-separation shit never end,” as she put her arm
around my waist and laid her head on my upper arm. “Are you OK?” she said with utter
sincerity.
---“I am, stronger than I realized I could be. Apparently Sarah hasn’t forgotten me, but
I'm not sure she's remembered the way I have. For that reason any reunion of any sort –
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even just an email – is not being contemplated, and surprisingly once I came to terms
with that I felt OK. She is still tucked away as a dear friend with whom I fell in love, and
somehow that still seems OK. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Sophia got up and pulled me up from the bench. “Com'on, I can hear the imaginary
dinner bell. I'm gonna believe what you've just told me, and that's the end of it.”
Punctuality was one of Sophia's absolutes.
On the way back I briefly described what had happened in the past two weeks and that
my meeting Natalia came by way of Blister's trial. As we entered the yard laden with
more food and full of people, I quickly told Sophia that the volume I was editing was
done and I thought with that my days as a practicing psychiatrist had come to a final and
absolute end. She looked unalarmed, gave me a hug and pinched my cheek, as if . . .
“Old News.”
---“Just remember, each fall at pumpkin time you are ordered to be here.” And she took
off to help the servers.XVI
As I walked toward the crowd, I saw that Beth had reappeared. Before I knew it, Issy
took me by the arm and directed us to the booze table. She ordered two Old-Fashioneds,
properly muddled, which was a senseless instruction since the barkeep was one of the
best in the city, and, of course, he worked for Gino.
---“Thank you, Izzy, I doubt if I could have found my way to this table without you.”
---“More psychiatric bullshit. You’re tethered to this table.”
We tipped our glasses and walked toward a knot of uncles. We all embraced, several
times, and the ribbing, such an ordinary component of any family conversation, began in
earnest, and I was the victim.
---“Now Shrink,” declared the most rotund of the uncles, although he could still play a
wicked game of doubles tennis, “now the debate is . . . .”
I put up my hand and said, “Let me guess . . . ah . . . ah . . . football . . . .”
---“Exactly. You know next-to-nothing about the sport, probably less than next-tonothing, but you know human behavior. The debate is, why all these high-salaried teams
flub as often as they do. The large philosophical question, which this family likes to
bypass, is, does money make us soft and lazy?”
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---“In the case of this family, apparently not, since you guys own half the county and
your offspring owns the other half. I would say, your money has begat more money and
will continue to begat for a long time.”
Cheers went up, as we all clicked our glasses.
---“With football players and athletes in general, I can’t say I'm in the know except when
the ones with the money are spending it on others who don’t originally own the money,
the risk is high that the receiver of the money will not live up to the expectations of the
giver of money.”
---“Nonsense, and no disrespect to you, Dr G. It's chemistry. I can figure out the
chemistry far faster than the NFL owners can,” interjected Sergio.
---“Thank you for saving me, Sergio . . . .” just as the bell for dinner clanged.
---“What saved you was the bell,” intoned an offspring, a friend and a colleague, head of
surgery at the university hospital.
Dr Fred, Sophie’s nephew, and I walked to the serving table together. We hadn’t seen
each other in months. As we stood in line – the lines here were never long – he started to
fill me in on changes at the medical school and the hospital.
---“Let me boost your ego, which lies in ruins, of course, the new dean – a woman
whom you appointed – is a gem. Why don’t you come back? Rejoin the faculty? You
could be your own department, your own institute. A class or two, a committee or two, a
lab and coffee from a machine every morning? Home in time for late afternoon nap.”
---“Good Lord, Fred, if a committee or two weren’t bad enough, the coffee would
destroy what’s left of his mind,” chimed in Lizzie, his wife, Sophie’s niece by marriage,
whom I’d brought onto the psychiatry faculty against much opposition and who was
now head of neurological sciences, as she joined us.
---“Thanks, Lizzie. Listen to your wife, Fred.”
---“How long has it been?” she asked as we hugged. “Ignore Fred. He’s trying to
compensate for his lack of will power.”
---“He's at his persuasive best with the coffee machine and a nap potential but no dice. I
saw some things in the 'reeeetiree bulletin' about personnel changes in your department –
I’ll bet you’re a much happier person. Am I right?”
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---“You bet – how you put up with some of those clowns for so many years is beyond
me,” declared Lizzie, and declared was the operative verb with Lizzie. “Actually, you
didn’t since I know how you managed by the art of the ‘disregard’, a valuable tool for all
administrators.” We all laughed with that comment. My administrative style was wellknown. Lizzie was not only as smart as a whip but also quick with the comeback.
She added, as we moved to the head of the line:
---“We bought the clowns out, a wonderful economic incentive that the university needs
to use more. And the new people are cut from your mold . . . skeptical of the old rules
but measured in their search for the new protocols. Later in the year, we'll round
everyone up for a dinner party – right now, I'm up to my ears in grant proposals and
budget reviews.”
We picked up our utensils and drinks and made our choices of entrées. Since we made
different choices, we bid each other adieu with different table to go to. Gino made sure
we had large trays so that we didn’t have to juggle a pile of food-laden dishes, and as I
exited the line C was at my side to guide me to her table. I was pleased by this because
Beth was already seated at the table. For the next hour we ate, we drank, we talked, we
laughed, and no one got angry with anyone else. It was strictly forbidden.
While waiting for dessert, which Beth said quite openly was her responsibility so we
could be alone a few minutes, C, with her arm around my shoulder, whispered the first
serious remark – “What did you think about Mom?”
I was taken by surprise. “Should I have observed something?” I asked.
---“She's under observation for a cardio-electrical malfunction – something about the
electrical system in the left ventricle. She didn’t mention it, did she? Fred says it's
manageable with medication, but we're all a little worried.”
---“I would trust Fred, he's one of the best, even when not dealing with family, but we
can all begin to worry once the results are known. My guess is that the circuits are a bit
worn, it happens to most of us old folks and it can be treated. Fred's right about that.”
---“OK, I feel better. They've both slowed down a lot this year, and I guess every change
brings out the worry bug. To change the subject . . . what’s the story? Not only was she
much too beautiful but she was also much too attentive. I know nothing about her
background, well-educated and pretty rich, I'm sure, but so am I. The difference is that I
live in the real world. Does she?”
---“She lives in her own real world. It’s not yours.”
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---“I thought we had a deal?”
---“We did. I followed your example. I welched.”
---“I’m younger. I’m allowed more freedom to catch up with your lifetime of bedroom
frolics.”
---“Was that a part of the agreement? I can’t remember because ocean waves were ready
to devour me if I didn’t accede.”
---“And do not forget I have the right of first refusal on any commitments. And, the
penalty is not what you want to endure.”
---“Funny thing. She must have known that because by the end of the 24 hours I had
achieved the status of No-No.”
---“You hardly seem out sorts, but goddamn it, you never are. You somehow project cool
in the midst of chaos.”
---“I fake it. It's a defense we use in counseling, and I think we unwittingly adopt it as
scripture for ourselves. Our conversation on the last afternoon veered in a direction that
was unexpected and probably explains why I haven’t heard from her.”
---“After a night of fucking, what did you expect? Her mind must have been scrambled.
I know your bed.”
---“Maybe falling in love early in the week gains a new perspective by the end of the
week.”
---“Be warned. I quit my playboy who was dumber than dust, and if I hadn’t, I would
have after meeting Natalia. Your dance card is full for tonight,” she announced in less
than a whisper as she tightened her grip. She knew how to arouse me, and she knew this
was not the place because she was also vulnerable. As she let go and stood up with
demon eyes brighter than the fading sun, she had a final command:
---“You’re staying in the guest house and not in the main house. Expect company.”
She winked and left, as a server arrived with pie, no, several pies piled on a tray with
whipped cream and other goodies.XVII
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I finished a favorite part of these annual celebrations – pies, golden and crisp, not just
one-standard-pumpkin-from-the-field pie but five or six different pumpkin pies. I sat
alone on the bench and watched the younger crowd – the kids I’d watched grow up in
the last decade – toast marshmallows and s'mores at the big fire. A s’more I could not
eat, even though I took some pleasure in imagining I could. I took a moment to check
my cell and saw a slew of messages, including one form Dell. I decided to leave them,
when I felt a tap on my shoulder:
---“I see this seat is taken,”a finger pointing at the discarded tray, “but I’ll bet I could
squeeze in.”
My eyes moved from the finger to the face of Beth, smiling and looking as delicious as
the pies I’d just finished.
---“I don’t see well in the dark, but you look utterly suitable for the remaining space.
Please sit down.”
After moving the tray to a nearby table, she slid onto the bench. She unfolded a blanket,
which she had taken from the ample supply Gino provided his guests to protect against
the rapidly-cooling autumn evenings.
---“I was instructed to protect the old guy over there on the bench from the cold. Would
that be you?”
---“One of the few celebrations I attend where I am not the oldest. Don’t gals, young and
old, feel the cold too. That's an airplane observation since females seem to scoop up all
the pillows and blankets before the men can even think about them.” She pulled her part
of the blanket up around her neck
---“I wouldn’t know because I've never flown. I’ll take your word for it, and let you have
this corner of the blanket.”
---“For my knee?” as she handed me just a corner before she relented and spread out half
the blanket. “Thanks. The evening’s fun is about to begin, and I'm glad to have
company. How are you doing?”
---“I'm doing OK. I had a long conversation with my brother after we got here – I think
they’re planning some sort of intervention, which I don’t plan to attend. I'm honestly
beginning to think about being kidnapped. Could that happen?”
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---“It could. That thought had crossed my mind because it's happened to others. As long
as you stay close to the farm and keep in touch, it wouldn’t be easy to pull off. But, be
wary.”
---“I do have several numbers I can call. It's bewildering how hard it is to get out. That's
not quite it. How hard it is withdraw far enough so I can make my own decision. I don’t
want to turn on my brother and family, but I don’t want to be dictated to either. I just
assumed they would hear me out and accept my decision because it was mine. I certainly
never expected to be under such pressure. I’d created my own pressure by beginning to
ask questions I’d never asked before, and then I came under even more pressure from
those who didn’t want me to ask those questions.”
---“I'm sure that for some – family members in particular – it's a very sad moment to
have you moving outside the circle, and their feelings may be genuinely heartfelt,
although their actions may be of a different magnitude. For others losing control over
you has too many troubling implications. Even if we discount the dating issues, having
someone leave the circle represents a kind of fissure that cannot be allowed to spread.
Control is essential to evangelicals and to many churches. It's ironic because their
discontent led them to rebel and disassociate only to create an environment that can be
as controlling and many times more controlling than what they left. The Protestant
Reformation created its own time-bomb. Holding the flock together after disassociating
from the Mother Church proved to be impossible. There are thousands of Protestant
sects, and there is still basically one Mother Church.”
---“I'm amazed how much you, so non-religious, know about religion.”
---“Don’t forget, I went through a similar withdrawal, although I was a mainline
Protestant. Evangelicals were held in very low regard where I come from. While the
conditions are different, the questions and the pressures are similar. I was in college at
the time, and I purposely took some courses that allowed me to delve into these things
more deeply. More contemporaneously, it happened that the clinic was seeing lots of
patients who were in various stages of religious crises. Several years ago the demand
was so heavy and we were so unequipped that I set up a series of seminars for staff
members including the doctors to meet with theologians, preachers and others in the
religious communities to become sensitive to the environments that give rise to these
crises. Religion has such a large presence in our society that we all think we understand
how it works, but most of us only understand a small slice of the religious component,
that slice that we may ourselves participate in. It may not be reassuring for you to know
that what you’re going through including the fears of intervention and kidnapping are
fears others, many others, share.”
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---“Dr G, how are you?” as the server kissed me on the cheek and handed us a tray with
marshmallows and s'mores and a pot of herbal tea.
---“Gloria, I'm fine and how are you. This is Beth, who does some of the landscaping
here. Gloria is one of the chefs in Gino's many kitchens.”
---“Hi, Beth. Take care of this guy – he's our go-to-get-me-out-of-trouble guy. Gotta go.
Here’s a hug, Dr G.”
---“How many damsels have you rescued?”
---“Thousands. I'm awake night and day. It's endless . . . .”
Out of the dark arrived another damsel, Tera, one of the grandkids, to occupy the small
space on my other side. She reached across in front of me to acknowledge Beth, whom
she knew, while I asked how things were at the university where she was a freshman.
---“It's fun – lots work but not silly stuff. Sometimes hard, like the science classes, but
manageable. And, I have time to do my music, which will always be important to me,
probably more so than my kin might wish.”
I explained to a puzzled-looking Beth that Tera was an accomplished musician on
several instruments and played in several local bands.
We could hear the musicians, her sibs and cousins, beginning to warm up for the night’s
entertainment.
---“So, what’s in store for tonight?”
---“Surprise, Surprise, Surprise, my favorite muse!”
---“Ought-oh. Should I be worried?”
---“Indeed, you should.” Tera pinched my cheek, followed by a kiss. “We’re going to
expose your romantic side. We'll certainly do a jazzy version of Misty, and a country
version of Crazy and will probably close with another favorite, less romantic, Hymn of
Freedom, one we often play, and, of course, we'll open it up to requests but you’re
forbidden to speak because you can’t hog the show.”
---“I’ll behave, and I’ll try not to cry.”
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I could hear Beth snicker, being part of a conversation that she did not know I’d been
having with Tera for years. Sadly, Sophia and Sergio had no grandchildren, but their sibs
had done their part, enough for one of the best teenage bands around. Tera, the oldest of
Fred and Lizzie, was probably the most talented of the crew, but a couple of the younger
cousins would give her a run for the money. No one has figured out where all this
musical talent came from since none of the moms and dads was particularly musical.
Lizzie often laid claim to the gene pool since her Jewish family had several professional
musicians. There were objections, good-humoredly, as the Italians tried to trace their
lineage back through Caruso. However it came about, this was a talented bunch of kids.
---“Do you have time to do any gigs or is it study, study, study?” I asked Tera. “You
know we design the pre-med curriculum to make you misty and drive you crazy.”
---“Enough time to perform at your favorite pizza shop in a few nights. I expect to see
you, and if I flunk out, I expect you to come to my aid. How about you, Beth, any
favorites?”
---“Well, my musical range is pretty narrow – you can guess, mostly Christian gospel
and rock – but I do know Crazy, which I assume has a professional connection for Dr.
G,” said Beth.
---“A theme song played before all of my sessions. Misty goes back decades when I fell
in love with a Jewish girl whose father subsequently threw me out because I wasn’t
Jewish.” I explained. “Errol Garner wrote the music, Johnny Burke added the words
later, and Johnny Mathis made it famous, but other jazz greats like Billy Ekstein and
Ella Fitzgerald recorded it. These guys play an incredible version of it, and this young
lady croons it in a way I've never imagined possible. So, I’m ready to feel crazed and
teary over Sandy again.”
---“Beth, we’ve heard so many versions of the Sandy romance that we’ve quit counting.
But, thanks for the compliment, Dr G, I don’t think it would be in my repertoire if you
hadn’t given me that Ella disc. I haven’t got the scat down yet, but I'm going to try a
little tonight. There are times I’d rather be playing than studying but you know whose
genes I share so I doubt if I’ll have to call upon the Good Doctor for a rescue plan. Gotta
tune up.”
She stood, ready to join the band now assembled in front of the fire.
---“Sorry, Beth, but we're not in tune with the Christian-gospel music scene. Maybe,
sitting next to this unforgiving romantic you’ll enjoy the show. Make sure the old man
doesn’t miss his bedtime,” as she threw her arms around me with a peck on the cheek.
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---“You’re absolutely fearless, Tera, scat like the best,” I proclaimed, as she slid into the
dark before appearing at the head of the band.
---“I can hardly wait,” whispered Beth, as we both wrapped up in the blanket and waited
for the downbeat. “I think you have a very big fan.”
---“Luck rains upon us in strange and unexpected ways.”
For the next hour music, truly fine music, filled the farmland. Gino and his partner
arrived with blankets and sat on the ground in front of us and Tera's Mom and dad joined
us, Fred on the arm bench and Lizzie in the seat vacated by their daughter. There was
much applause, in fact, there was shouting plus applause. When they opened with Crazy
everyone joined in. At the end, when Tera stood at the mike and tuned her guitar, she
caused my face to turn red in the dark, thank goodness – “for Dr G who has helped us
through many misty moments” – and then she sang and she scatted, and Lizzie, having
married a goy and an Italian goy at that, knew and loved my Sandy story. She threw her
arm around me, pulled me close and whispered in my ear,
---“My Dad wouldn’t have thrown you out.” That brought the tears, not quit full force,
but with enough that I had to wipe my eyes. I noticed Beth was watching and smiling.
She took my left hand as Lizzie reached for my right. And the crowd so applauded
Tera’s scat that she repeated it to more applause. I could see both joy and fear in Fred’s
and Lizzie’s face, as Tera acknowledged the applause with her hands raised over her
head and then pointed her fists in our direction. They knew how talented their gal was
and how the future for her was totally unpredictable. The band broke into Hymn of
Freedom, which they must have played for five minutes. The keyboard man, Tera's
brother, did the Oscar Peterson octave trill almost as well as Oscar did. We stood and
applauded when it was over, and we all had expressions of satisfaction mingling with
disbelief, even though we'd been listening to these kids for years.
---“Maybe we should let her bag pre-med and just let her scat, which is what she really
loves,” said Lizzie to no one in particular.
---“It would be cheaper,” added Fred.
---“And you’re not even the Jew in the family,” shot back Lizzie, whose sense of timing
was nearly always perfect.
I also noticed a different expression of disbelief on Beth's face. She'd probably never
heard a conversation like this.
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We ambled over to where a crowd was greeting the band. I took some more ribbing from
the uncles and aunts, and I made sure I said a word to each member of the band. Having
known and heard the band for so long, I found myself inwardly claiming them as my
own. By then, Gino had produced some Armagnac, and we toasted the performers and
then we toasted the hosts.
An hour later the crowd began to part, and the fire had turned to ashes. Beth announced
her departure. I said I would walk with her since the guest house was in the same
direction as the bunkhouse. Gino said breakfast at the farmhouse was set for nine am,
and then to me he said that Lizzie and Fred would drive me back to the city.
Beth started the conversation by saying that this was so different for her world and fun
in a way she'd never known. They seemed to be such a positive engagement with the
world she's been taught to resist. She wasn’t sure whether this made it easier or harder
for her. She was trying to be objective, not utterly reject her religious world and embrace
this secular world, but evenings like this tested her objectivity.
I was impressed with the seriousness she was showing and sympathetic with the
helplessness she was feeling. In my own case I remember some of the guilt trips I
imposed upon myself but not much else. I didn’t think that Beth had suddenly become a
hedonist but like me and many others in similar predicaments she was feeling the
temptation.
---“I've spend a lot time just spinning my wheels, and right now I don’t feel I'm making
any progress. I think at times about what my parents told me when I announced my
decision that I was opening the door to the devil and he would be relentless.”
---“I'm not sure I've heard you say at what point the disengagement started? Before you
announced your decision or at about the same time?”
For the next few minutes we walked in silence again. As we stepped over rocks and
around bumps, we finally approached the bunkhouse.
---“I suppose the answer is that it started out a while back, but it intensified in recent
months. My affair with the Baron caused me to sob but also to question. Until now, with
the exception of Cici I was not comfortable about exposing the ravaging I’ve gone
through. For months I kept my questioning to myself except once or twice I tried to
share how I felt with the two men in my life. You can imagine what their answers were. I
came to realize that the coffee clown’s advice would serve his interests . . . more bed
time . . . his pawing still disgusts me.
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---“I’d hoped for something different from my second man. He was openly caring, but
after while I figured out his answers were designed to get me in bed with him under
circumstances that would please the Good Lord. Why not, and, then, I knew why not.
The simple reason was I didn’t want to. It dawned on me – a revelation, if you will – that
I was no longing automatically thinking that sex in and of itself was bad. I just didn’t
want sex with the guys in my life. Admitting that made me feel stronger at times and
weaker at other times.
---“You may have figured out I was home-schooled, and even though I attended art
classes and dance classes outside our family circle, what I was taught within that circle
pretty much set the course. But, experimenting with sex for the first time and squabbling
over sex and marriage seemingly made it impossible to turn back or to go back. I found
myself on a new path, and in a vision or dream – I’m not sure which it was – I had
castrated two male villains and left them lying along side the path that they had opened
up to me. In my religious circles castration is what boys are threatened with if they can’t
control their impulses. I was apparently imposing it upon a couple of adults.” A
metaphor that made us both chuckle along. “The point of the vision or dream seemed to
be that I would take this path I was now standing in on my own. That was a powerful
moment for me but not a comfortable one. Sex is such a complication for evangelicals,
and I wonder if our theology didn’t make it more complicated than it should be.
“Unlike the seculars we were not taught to think of sex as desirable, but I was asking
myself over and over again why shouldn’t it be desirable, even outside of marriage. And,
then, my theological roof would come crushing down on me, and I’d feel worse. But, the
questioning didn’t stop. If it is the work of the devil, he knows what he's doing. So, here
I am, talking to a shrink who is not my shrink partly because these things have been
piling up inside me. But, you know, tonight's gala, which I dreaded attending but Cici
insisted, somehow made me feel better about myself and that these questions about the
world I've been living in versus the world I'm learning more about are about me and not
the work of the devil. Perhaps, I'm spinning my wheels because I'm trying to avoid
finding some answers. I don’t know. What I do know is even in your unofficial capacity
I loading you down with stuff I haven’t been able to talk to others about, not even Cici,
who is probably my closest friend right now. I should apologize, but, actually, I'm
grateful.”
We were standing in front of the bunkhouse, and I wanted to reassure her that I was a
good listener but also I wanted to keep the counseling side to a minimum.
---“I think your own self-assessment may be as sound as what you could come up with
in counseling. Rely on that for now. You know you can seek out friends when you feel
the need to. Just talking things through with friends, listening to music or taking walks
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may be sufficiently therapeutic. In this farm family you’ll have all the personal
protection or emotional support you'll ever need.”
She kissed me on the cheek, smiled and without a word climbed the steps to the door. I
turned toward the guesthouse, When I looked back, she waved from the door.XVIII
It was a few steps further to the guesthouse. It was unlocked and when I entered I could
see my bag had been brought from the car and more to my surprise a bottle of
champagne rested in its ice-filled silver holder.
I washed up and pulled out my pajamas. I love pajamas and own a dozen pairs and sat in
a recliner far more comfortable than anything I owned. Trying to account for all the
“interventions” in my life in the last week or so were beyond my comprehension in that
recliner. I must have drifted off because the next thing I remembered was a kiss from
lips I’d never forgotten. They were not small, flat lips, but large, curved lips. As I
opened my eyes, C's face was about three inches from mine.
---“Hi. My body must have realized it missed today's nap,” I pleaded as she sat on my
lap.
---“You'll need some rest to manage what’s ahead,” she said softly and then lay her head
back on my shoulder. “I've been dreaming about this for so many hours, and now I'm
having trouble believing it's happening. Not like me.”
---“Never saw it coming, did I? So much for my ESP.”
---“You didn’t see it coming because I would never reveal how pissed I was, and you,
above all others, know how good I am at concealing. Besides, you seemed to be fucking
busy fucking the most beautiful 45-year-old in the universe. Is that to make up for your
earlier ejection? That’s ejection, not . . . .”
---“It would be plural . . . ejections. You carefully set an age limit, so as not to erode
your own position in this high-powered romantic war. And, ‘my lovely besides’, you’ve
been off for six months, living with Mr Dust. What was I supposed to do? Have I met
Mr Dust?”
---“Wait for me . . . wait, wait, wait . . . that is your only moral obligation . . . wait for
me, and, no, you never met Mr Dust. After a while, I was embarrassed. Add to my
embarrassment he didn’t like this place, neither the city or the farm, and the dogs
growled constantly in his presence and caused him to fear for his life. He was a total
goofus outside his own world, protected by his wealth and pampered by his hangers-on.
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Honestly, I thought the days of hangers-on had passed. That we ever hooked up now
strikes me as an absurdity. I think it was romance built around cars, road rallies, which
he was pretty good at, and champagne, which was his standard drink – aren’t you
jealous?”
---“Speaking of jealousy and champagne . . . .”
---“Yipes, you’re right. Stay seated, old man, I’ll do the honors, the way they do them in
the rich Newport enclave I had the pleasure of visiting.”
In a few minutes I was drinking an Alfred Gratien Cuvee Paradis Brut. I had failed to
notice the label when I first arrived.
---“Was this his choice or yours?”
---“Balls from barn-animals will be your breakfast,” as she leered, one of her trademark
looks.
---“I apologize. This is really fine champagne. Did we toast?”
---“No, we did not . . . .” and our glasses clicked as our lips joined before we drank.
---“I can’t stand the thought that you’re leaving.”
---“I'm leaving?”
---“You know my mother's intuition.”
---“She's made up her mind because she extended me an invitation to return for next
year's pumpkin party. I guess I'm as good as gone. Of course, after this little rendezvous
I may be leaving full of buckshot.”
---“Nope, not going to happen. Both of them plus Gino know my feelings for you. Go
for it was not exactly their reaction but close to it. I had to laugh.”
---“Am I allowed some time to take this all in? I was clueless. You and I have long been
soul-mates, and I love you in more ways than the actual women I've made love to. But . .
. .”
---“Oh no, none of your clever dancing around the love pole. You’re either in right this
minute or I shut off the champagne.”
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After a pause, more like a signal for a most flirtatious smile she was a pro at devising –
mouth halfway open with eyes that grew bluer the longer the smile lasted – she started
again:
---“Come to think of it, I don’t need an answer. I know you better than you know
yourself. I know how I feel, and I know how you feel. I know where and why these
feelings have been hanging out. We've had other things on our minds, romances to deal
with, life to get reoriented. I'm not sure we were ever meant for each in the tradition
sense, but we were meant eventually to find each other. That's all that matters. Finding
each other.”
---“And, we haven’t yet?”
---“Are you going to answer your question or am I going to let you sit here the rest of
the night by yourself without bubbly and only a Doberman for company?”
At the word Doberman, a Doberman by the door took note.
Between our lips were two champagne flutes and behind the flutes were smiles.
---“We gonna make love and fuck tonight, and after it's over we both know it will
happen again. So what's the latest on Sarah, while I pour some more golden bubbly.”
For the next few minutes I told her what I knew and how I felt, pretty much what I’d
told Sophia.
---“Do you believe her?” she asked.
---“Funny thing . . . I asked myself the same question. It seems too clever to be true. But,
we'll probably never know. If it is a lie, it's about as elaborate a lie with little chance of
changing the situation one could ever come up. Anyway, I can’t resist your desire any
longer. I almost had an orgasm in the middle of the festivities. Let’s drink to a good
fuck.”
---“We’ll drink to a good fuck, but it ain’t gonna happen right now because we have
some further romantic business to deal with.”
---“Besides you, that would be?” I suddenly knew what it was, even before C started.
---“She likes you. She likes you a lot. Too much. I knew it was a risk, but I hoped your
wrinkles and grays would ward off her urges. I think they had the opposite effect.”
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---“I’ll try to wrinkle more and gray faster. Believe me, nothing’s happened and nothing
will.”
---“I suspect she’s talking to you more than she’s ever talked to anyone. I used to occupy
that position, but the mountain is crowded. I can’t object. You’re the one she should be
talking to, but you’re the one she wants to fuck. Not in those words exactly but almost.
Funny how the evangelical shield slides away when it’s convenient.”
I sat up as straight as was possible in this lounger that opposed such a posture.
---“Look C . . . I don’t have to say this to you . . . you of all people. You know goddamn
well the mess after the magic of fucking her old psychiatrist wore off, as it would in
time. She’s a beautiful woman . . . for someone else.”
I lounged again, as C leaned.
---“I never knew how jealous I could feel about you until this week. Can I make you feel
jealous about me?”
---“Hmmm. Mr Dust, I’m afraid, had no effect on the jealousy hormones. I thought he
was doomed from the beginning. But, neither one of us is very good about endings. We
don’t often end things. We just slip into a new twist . . new faces, new peckers . . . .”
---“New cunts . . . let me go where I know you’re going . . . .”
We both laughed. What we both needed to lighten up the moment that had unexpectedly
serious for us.
---“I’m thinking that risking the next one ain’t worth it. I’m letting jealousy take hold.
You know what Sophia said this afternoon, something she’s said before, before company
no less, but today it sounded and felt different. What Muse has been whispering in her
ear? What am I saying . . . she knows . . . she can divine . . . and we both know that. The
bed, my love, or I’m gonna pop all over the inside of my $6.99 jeans.”
For the next hour or two . . . who was keeping track . . . it was love-making C style. Her
language was our style. I knew better than to resist, to challenge, to redirect. How she
made it work after months of absence I don't know. Sex with her had to be over the top
without falling off the top, cooing without booing and delectable and delicious without
feeling sated and jaded. That meant, according to her, lustful . . . full of lust, not as if it
was the last hurrah or the divine climax . . . Hell No . . . last and divine implied sexual
denouement, which she thought was crazy . . . keep it raw, keep it dirty, keep it carnal so
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we'll keep coming back and back and back . . . never to be choreographed, always to be
impromptu. Every venture was different and equally exhausting.
---"if you're not sore, not beat, then, you've not done enough," she said to me in that
near-floating lean-to. Somewhere she found dipper – perhaps she grabbed the celestial
dipper – and gently dribbled warm water over my spent body. I wanted to fall in love
with her forever hat night, but I didn't let myself and I never have since. She was not to
be mine, but a decade later i was struggling with emotions I'd forbidden. Was she too?
We were literally splayed across the bed, our faces pointed toward each other, basking in
the aura that filled the room, fingers limply intertwined, tongues totally tied.
We lay quietly until our breathing calmed.
---“Ace, I don’t have to tell you anything, I've just fully expressed myself.”
---“Fully, as have I.”
I moved toward C and lay by her side.
---"The power of jealousy . . . and breaking rules . . . and perfect pitch . . . and let's talk
about love . . . we never have," I heard whispered in my ear.
All I could think to say was,
---"All of the above, and, no, we never have."
What I heard next was a curve ball.
---“How often do you masturbate?”
---“Often. How about you?”
---“Occasionally but more so now than earlier. I've found different ways to make it an
experience rather than a routine. Sometimes, I shout and shake. I don’t remember that
when I was young. But, I like having a cock inside me – nothing matches that.”
---“I groan and shake, and often raise my upper body only to flop back when orgasm
occurs. And, I also like having my cock inside . . . but there have been times after
masturbating I find myself thinking cheaper, simpler, cleaner, as if I needed a
rationalization.”
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C lifted her body over mine. I was only a couple of inches taller than she was, but when
we stretched out it was almost toe to toe and mouth to mouth.
---“I want to talk. I'm not sure what I want to talk about, but I want to talk.”
I thought, as I hear this plea . . . the second time this week with not so good results the
first time.
---“One of the things that I realized when I was dating dumb dust was that I was tired of
buying and selling. I was tired of doing what I’ve been doing. Like you, I’m looking for
an ending and then a beginning. You know you exasperate people, except in this family,
but one thing everyone admires about you is that you allow your curiosity to lead the
way. It gets you into hot water, hotter than you can navigate sometimes. I want some of
that curiosity. I want to try to let some things happen without kneading, shaping,
planning, organizing – all those things that work so well in business but never in
romance.
---“I’m hoping some of you rubs off on me tonight. I can afford to stop working right
this minute and never do it again. But, then, the old guilt trip kicks in, and after weeks of
thinking about it, I haven’t made any changes at all. Earlier I said finding ourselves’. I
meant that seriously. I’ve been working at it. Haven’t had to do that since when you and
I first met. I’ve just been doing, and I know . . . you know . . . how good I am at that. I
think you’re much further along because you’ve been at a long time.”
I sigh.
---“Take that in the right way. I admire your grittiness about life. That’s what I’m finding
that finding myself comes to mean. A grittiness I’m unaccustomed to.
---“Look, Ace, I’ll fight to keep you. I know that now. I wasn’t sure before. I am now.
But, you also have to know . . . again, you know . . . I need time. I’m sorry . . . I need
time.”
I knew what she said I knew. Before I could say anything, I heard:
---“When I talk about these things with the family, guess who's on my side – the one
we’d least expect – my Dad. I now think, if he could have dropped everything years ago,
he would have done so and started singing opera. You know his love for that archaic art
form – the two of you could’ve booked rooms in the city and spent weeks sublimating
your passions.”
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---“Wow, I'm surprised. He's not as devoted to business as he appears to act. And,
incidentally, doing opera with your old man would be the pinnacle.”
---“I’ve always felt change is needed, ever-constant, useful, but, right now, lying here
with you, a man I should not be with under the conditions I’m with him, in this circle of
two, I want change to rule absolutely. Is anybody safe from such a thought? By most
standards, I have it all, and yet I’m not where I want to be, and, Ace, I don’t have you
where I want you. I’m falling in love with you. How can I be falling in love with you?
I’ve known you forever. I’m falling in love with someone I know. That violates your
rule, if I may repeat, from our night afloat . . . nearly afloat . . . on the Pacific . . . .”
---“I know the rule. I haven’t had the occasion to explain the corollaries . . . .”
---“Forget it. I can make them up too. Right now, it’s still something spontaneous – our
fucking began as spontaneous and has remained that way – it's infrequent and therefore
still mysterious. We are still strangers with each other, newly acquainted because the
context – oh, blessed context – has changed. I won’t let you go, unless I can't hold you.
The risk we both face and we both understand. I am the only woman in your life who
understands that, you are the only man in mine. Let me introduce myself, Cici, not to be
confused with Cici,” she said with the most serious smile I'd ever seen.
---“Transformed, at least transfigured, I am Ace, formerly D-Man."
---“You're still D-Man when you’re loving someone else . . . only Ace when you’re
fucking me.”
---“I prefer the new moniker.”
I pulled C close, as if I were helpless and needed someone to hold me together. She
burrowed herself into my upper body, twisted her legs about mine, as if she too were
helpless and in need. In the years I’d known C and the times we had fucked, I’d never
seen her in this mode or mood. Usually, so full of self-control, she was dripping in
feelings. They were contagious. So was I.
---“I’ve known all your Sirens, haven’t I? How many times have you been thrown unto
the rocks?”
---“Let's see, between two and five, if I remember my Homer . . . maybe it was
hundreds? Is there a male version of Siren? I think you’ve been on the rocks a few times,
no?”
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---“Don’t know the answer. The fact is you’ve joked about the Sirens and the rocks for
years, and yet, Ace, although you’ve had some rocky romances, you’ve never allowed
yourself to be thrown unto the rocks. Even with Sarah, I cheered for her because I loved
that woman and, of course, I didn’t know how much I was in love with you. Sarah was
not a Siren and did not cast you on any rock pile. You knew what was happening, and
I’ll bet she did too. No, Ace, I want to be done with the Sirens, Homer and all that shit.”
C was quiet. I felt no tension in her body, but I knew the expression, just inches from my
face. She had a Mediterranean face, unrestrained with darting eyes the color of the water
itself, but it could also show storm warnings. I waited. C would not be rushed.
---“I'm not normally jealous. In the past, I should correct. When I sent dumber-than-dust
on his way, I said one night at the table with my parents, there’s one guy I’d run away
with . . . no second thoughts, no reviewing-the-situation, no family consultation or
approval . . . and to my utter surprise I heard my Father say, ‘He’ll soon be retired.’ And,
then, we all laughed, and something inside of me shifted. I felt as if I were sitting a
different place.
---“When I saw the Lady-Beautifully-Turned-Out, all I could see was black . . . the most
evil-colored black. I was ashamed of myself, but I needed that . . . you being the Head
Doctor can explain it . . . and never one to shy away I knew I’d take action. And, this is
the beginning, Ace, and since I know you like the back of my hand, I know you won’t
object. You will also be patient. The path has some brambles, but they’re manageable . . .
always your word . . . I don’t like it, but now I need it. Manageable.
---“In fact, Ace, I wouldn’t be lying here, if I were all shook up about switching gears. I
think when I started down the path, at least in my head, I thought I did not have to rush .
. . I could take my time . . . and, then, of course, guess who showed up. Pissed though I
was – a woman’s instinct – I knew she was a fleeting moment. No real connection
except for . . . if I were a saint, which you damn-well better remember that I am, I would
have turned violent. That I didn’t was the sign I needed. What was churning inside
began to take on a sense of form and direction.
---“If it felt different tonight, now you know why. It felt different for you too . . .that’s
the advantages a woman has with the cock inside her . . . it conveys and conveys and
conveys all those things you keep trying to hide. Now, my Good Doctor, you know why
it’s the most sensitive part of your body. It’s filled with emotions that need to get out.
---“Don’t talk . . . just let me enjoy lying on top of this broad, muscular weight-lifter’s . .
. it’s the place I need at this point in my life . . . .”
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We lay quietly, her chin resting on my chest that had a slight up-and-down rhythm, until
she opened her eyes, lifted her chin and said,
---“I know your next question . . . ‘Have you talked to Issy about this?’”
It wasn’t my next question . . . it was a question but much further down the list.
---“What do you think?” as she tapped her fingers on my chest.
---“You have . . . and?”
---“She loves the businesses, and she'll buy me out. All I have to do is set the price. And,
you know Issy, it'll be cash on the barrel.”
---“I can assume a deal is more or less done.”
---“You can. In a month I’ll be unencumbered.”
---“That long?”
---“You may need a month. We both may need a month. Considering it’s taken you a
year to get out completely, a month is a blink.
---“More to the point, I probably need the month more than you. I have more shit in my
life to clean up than you do. You’ve been working on your end for a while. I’ve just
started. You’ve been in my life for years, but you just really came into my life, even
though you came before, many times before.”
Before I could speak or come again, she lightly pressed her hand over mouth and slid off
me unto her side, turning me to face her. If I had any doubts, I knew this was indeed
serious. I didn’t yet know how serious.
---“Have I ever used these words with you, Ace? I’m in love, I’m falling in love – the
emphasis on in – with the guy next door. Ha! Not quite, almost.”
Her hand was still in command of my mouth. I had nothing as interesting to say as what
I waited for next.
---“I looked up ‘falling in love’. I played your game. I now know how you know so
much. You’re a web addict. And, here is what I found out, my dear Dr Freud. Love is
blind. Cocaine addicts and love birds set off the same part of the brain when in pursuit of
what they love doing. You know this, but you’re forbidden to speak. I’m in love with
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you – perhaps as blind as a bat – but momentarily I’m in love and in control. Apparently
Shakespeare was right. How many times have I read the Merchant of Venice – Jessica’s
speech – and read right over ‘Love is blind and lovers cannot see’. Of course, it’s blind .
. . Ha-Ha.
---“My most amazing discovery was that being in love . . . being in love with you in
particular . . . I can recite my faults, your fault, my weaknesses, your weaknesses,
especially our roving eyes – admit it, we're always bedding down the handsome, the
sexy, the delicious, because we refuse to batten down the lust – I can recite, you can
recite . . . even in our lovemaking the rational slash analytical side of your brain is never
completely turned off – I don't want you near another female body but I don't want to
quit being near another male body. Being in love, as I'm feeling and you are too, adding
up the score as we do all the time, we easily – emphasis on easily – overlook our lover’s
faults to insure we keep falling in love.
---“Those neurotransmitters – dopamines, norepinephrines that make us feel giddy and
oxytocins and vasopressins that calm us down – we are at their mercy, aren't we?
Chemicals! It's not God or angels or destiny or fates . . . it's chemicals. And now that I
know that I plan to pile reaction on top of reaction that's will keep you in perpetual
vertigo. Chemicals! One mystery cleared up to be followed by more mysteries.” C could
see the surprise in my rapidly-moving eyebrows since I was still forbidden to speak. She
laughed without unlocking her eyes from mine.
---“Smart as a whip you used to say of me. I am, and so are you. We share that. But I’m
not interested in ‘mate selection’ anymore. I’m interested in chemicals that make me fall
in love. Falling in love. We haven't done that yet with each other, just with others. That
why with those gung-ho chemicals, we can start again. Love may be blind, but I can feel
what the fuck is happening.
---“By the way, I plan to keep neurotransmitters O & V – such ugly-sounding name – at
minimal levels.”
She removed her hand and rolled on top of me.
---“Speak!”
I pulled her lips to mine and for a long time we kissed, and when not kissing, looking
into each others’ eyes. I was thinking in clichés that suddenly took on meaning. All the
song lyrics I’d learned over the years began cascading through my head. Lyrics about
love, loss, tears, fears, living, dying, and before I knew I was singling softly the lyrics
for Martin and Ralph Blaines’s The Boy Next Door.”
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---“You made up those lyrics,” C said accusingly, holding my cheeks between her
thumbs and index fingers. “Made up, ’Fess up.”
---“Did you like them anyway, especially ‘The Boy Next Door/Forever I’ll
Adore/Forever I’ll Adore/Don’t Close the Door . . . .”
---“Made up! Made up! To your credit,” she added, as she let go of my cheeks and
leaned on her cupped hands, “To your credit, you’re the first to sing to me in bed, bad as
the lyrics were . . . still the first. Those neurotransmitters instruct me to overlook your
flawed musicianship.”
I threw my arms around C’s petite shoulders – she was tall and lean – and drew her in
close. No resistance. She slipped her arms under my neck, and for the moment we held
our faces, smiling faces, forehead to forehead. Finally, I said in a near whisper,
---“I’m clueless. Am I supposed to understand what’s going on? I’m no match for the
duo of Sophia and C, but . . . .”
---“But . . . .” I felt rather than heard.
---“I love you . . . not the way I’ve loved you for a decade but with all the mystery and
blindness that love should have.”
---“Well done, Ace, well done. I have no intention of unraveling all this. It got knotted
somehow, somewhere, and we’ll just live in the knot. Never spent much time with knots,
but this knot is what I want.
---“I want more but not right this minute,” said C. She sat up with her legs folded next to
me and took my hands.
---“Ace, I don’t know yet where we’re going. We have places to talk about but not yet. It
won’t be here. You and I can agree on that. My parents will be heartbroken, but not
beyond repair. They know I’ll see slash we’ll see them frequently. Besides, I don’t plan
to give up the farms in which I have an interest. The staff is already in place, and my
leaving is not going to have much impact. There are some other things – for example,
Gino’s and my share in the family agricultural trust. That’s the business of lawyers. No
reason to keep me here.
---“I have some other things that have to be cleaned up, not here but elsewhere. For the
next few weeks I’ll be in and out of town.”
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C was forgetting in the pleasure of the moment that I actually knew about some things
because she had told and bound me to secrecy. I’d never spoken a word to anyone,
including her after she told me. I had no interest in hearing about these things that had to
be “cleaned up.” They’d get done without me.
---“I’m leaving tomorrow morning . . . oops, this morning . . . and I’ll stay in touch but I
don’t expect either of us to report minute by minute where we are or what we’re doing.
You’re going to have to deal with your new admirer. You’re allowed one night with her.
No more . . . .”
---“Are you serious,” I blurted out. With more seriousness than I expected, she said,
---“I am.”
Then, I knew what some of the unfinished business was ahead. In effect, we were free
agents until she had untied some other knots.
She saw the grin cross my face and knew I knew. Nothing else was said.
---“I'm leaning West, Ace, West. West Where I’m not sure yet. I doubt if you’re going to
object. This is not a fairy tale. These are real places, not fanciful creations. Vancouver
and its gorgeous harbor; San Francisco with harbors, bridges, cable cars and gay
hangouts; LA warmer but delusional; maybe even further West into the Pacific. Probably
not eastward or northward or southward. I've left out a lot. My problem is that I don’t
know where, and, therefore, I plan to explore, and these explorations may not include
you. Can you live with that, and not fall, while I’m gone, into the final trouble pit you
can’t extricate yourself from? You have come close so many times, my dear.”
---“So, I'm not coming, along, although I going along somehow?”
---“Precisely. We're moving on, and we're figuring out the logistics, courtesy of yours
truly. Different from your Natalia, no? Don’t answer, you’re getting hard again, and
that's what I want,” as she rolled on top and with the gentlest motion inserted my penis.
How long we fucked and kissed and spoke the language of lovers I don’t know.
I awoke in a different bed from what I remember starting in. Dozens of shades were
covering what I assumed were dozens of windows. I heard voices speaking in tongues,
and I saw heads without bodies marching around the room, and I saw a procession of
women marching toward me in single file, eyes closed, and as they walked across my
body I could feel myself being enclosed in armor, and as they passed over my
breastplate I tried screaming out their names and using my metal glove, which was too
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heavy to lift up to hold on to them, and they were gone and the room folded into a closed
fan . . . .
Then, I felt something licking my hand hanging over the bed, and when I opened my
eyes – my real awakening, Palooka, the Doberman, was eying me good-naturedly, I
hoped. Then, I felt C's fingers rustling my hair. In the other hand, she had Peet's to which
this family had been converted and croissants from Gino's bakery I was certain.
---“So you missed breakfast and pissed off the family because Fred and Lizzie had to
leave. And, you’re still not even close to ready for the next taxi. It’s not a bad hike.”
She literally pulled me to a sitting up position with Palooka still on guard, and plopped
the tray across my lap. One kiss.
---“That's all you get – you've exceeded your quota. Now, eat before Palooka turns
nasty,” and she sat on the edge of the bed smiling and staring.
---“So, I'm in the dog house? I must say I like the accommodations unless I'm pissing off
the dog,” as I looked at Palooka for reassurance.
---“Not yet. Palooka can become dismayed when people screw around with his Madam.
I can’t always tell. He looks calm, but looks can be deceiving. To ease your guilt-ridden
mind – and guilt-ridden it should be – I saved you any embarrassment. I slept in my
room, although everyone knows what’s going on, except you.”
I glance at Palooka, whose eyes shine with gentleness, I think, before I’m caught in C’s
optic embrace.
---“Palooka is unpredictable, so stick to what you need to do. I wish I could be your
chauffeur, but I can’t be. We’ll find you one unless you decide to hang out here for the
rest of your life. You know, Sophia would supply you with everything you need. Lifting
a finger would be denied you. In that case Palooka will be instructed to allow you one
night and no more. If you missed it last night, panting and gyrating as you were, I'm
leaving town for a while. I’ll be in touch by text. Don’t fret. Now fuck!”
We kissed with a tray of food on my lap and a Doberman watching my every move. We
lost the battle with the tray. Palooka knew his job was to clean up the food spilled on the
duvet and the floor. Within second she undressed and slid in under the blanket. Her last
command before we sank into lovemaking: “Palooka, guard the door.” He did.XIX
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Close to noon I arrived at the farm-house in time for lunch and another cup of Peet's
with Sophia and Sergio who told me that they had decided to do something they vowed
they'd never do. Was I to expect my ejection from the household?
They had decided to rent a house in the Caribbean from December through February.
Everyone was coming for Christmas, and that meant me.
---“No excuses, Dr G. As crazy as it sounds, Sophia and I are just not up to another local
winter. I hate to admit that, but it's true.”
---“You can count on me. I'm not up to another one either. We have time to work out
respective plans.” And, then I turned to Sophia and asked, “Sophia, no more secrets
about health. It doesn’t sound too serious, but I want to know.”
---“I would have told you eventually. More than anything, it pisses me off. Do you
remember that hernia you had years ago? It felt more like a nuisance than a serious
medical condition. That’s how I feel. Sergio's right, though. We have to come to terms
with our ages, finally.” She took my hand and said with some melancholy, “I'm not the
praying sort in spite of my Catholic upbringing, but I feel prayerful each morning when I
know I've come through another night, and especially when I realize I've come through
another night with him.”
Sergio and I nodded in agreement. I was younger than either of them, and yet those
reckonings had become a part of my mornings as well.
Just then Fred and Lizzie came though the door. They had decided to wait until C and I
had finished our lovemaking. I could see it in their smiles and hear it in their innuendos.
We decided another cup of Peet's was in order.
Lizzie sat next to me and with her infectious grin asked,
---“Were you surprised with Tera's little conspiracy? She's a persistent worrier, but I told
her you squirmed a little, never having liked the limelight, even when you were the
limelight, but your expression revealed total pleasure, admiration and joy. Was I right?”
---“Dead on! She's such a brilliant artist I was more than just pleased, I was ecstatic
inside. I will send her and the band a note of thanks.”
Then, a typical Lizzie switch, never afraid to ask what she wanted to know. “Any word
from the vanishing lady? You know, everyone wants you to fall in love . . . but there's a
but . . . .”
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She had been a member of the Facebook Circle. Fred, who was not into social
networking, more reserved than his out-front mate, grimaced, but, then, when both
Sophia and Sergio broke out in broad, rich smiles, he relaxed. Lizzie’s backhanded “but
with but” did not fall on deaf ears. I assumed everyone knew, not I could drop the
assumed.
---“No, but let me check” I pulled out my cell. “Nope.”
---“I'm not sure I want you falling in love without our approval. You’re the model for the
sane and self-reliant. All of us married folks need that,” Lizzie said in a tone that
mocked the serious of her earlier query. Snickers were heard around the table.
---“Do any of you know the Richard Wilbur poem 'A Reckoning'?”
---“No.” was the reply in near unison.
---“I saw it recently in The New Yorker. Let’s see what I can remember of it. The first
stanza: 'At my age, one begins/To chalk up all his sins,/Hoping to wipe the slate/Before
it’s too late’; and a later stanza: 'Shocked faces that, alas,/Know me for an ass.'
---“Hold on,” I commanded to the rocking laughter around the bright red kitchen table
that might have matched the blush I was afraid would accompany my recitation. Holding
hands up, palms out, I continued: “I’ve got more to confess that will and, I quote again
from Wilbur's poem ‘make my old cheek blush.’”
I stopped, looked around the table at faces both eager but slightly fearful and smiled
with a line, which I made up on the spur of the moment . . . “Have I said enough?”
Applause and laughter erupted at the same time.
---“Here I am in the company of my favorite people. I can be full of embarrassment but,
alas, not full of shame, I’m afraid. There’s pride in my shame, and shamefully that last
line was invented, my invention. Here’s Wilbur’s stronger and truer final lines:
---“‘Of that I must be shriven/If I’m to be forgiven.’”
---“Forgiven is not a word in your lexicon, my Dear Doctor,” I hear, as I feel the
encircling arms of C, who must have been standing in the doorway behind me. “Unlike
the humble, sweet Richard Wilbur, you’re incorrigible among other things.”
Applause and laughter resumed at a higher volume.
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---“I forbid any shrivening around here while I’m gone,” added C.
Beth, standing next to her and holding a suitcase, was as wide-eyed as I had ever seen
her. C hugged and kissed everyone around the table except me. She leaned over and
whispered,
---“You had yours.”XX
I was home just after noon. It was not quite the weekend I’d anticipated. I spent the
afternoon catching up – news, answering emails, posting messages – and trying not to
think too much what was past or what was ahead. I usually made few concrete plans –
never much of a planner . . . that’s why administrators have assistants – but obviously C
had put me in a thinking-ahead mode. With C . . . always a fantasy but now . . . Jesus,
twice her age and half her vitality . . . talk about the gambles I’d failed at . . . how can
this ever work? I sunk back into my chair and took refuge in staring through the sliding
glass door. Were there any messages in those photons?
She was right. Last night a tether was broken, and we floated off into a different place
and time. She felt it, and I know now I felt it. Those pulsations against my body were
carrying messages. I responded, I urged, I demanded, I succumbed . . . like Nacho
Duarte’s dance choreographed to Bach’s Cello Sonata, which I saw in Paris, C could
have folded me up (as the dancer playing a human cello did) and carried me into the
wings en route to a new space.
One night with Beth . . . whatever could C be thinking? Was something happening on
her end to prompt such a remark? That I had an admirer in Beth did not surprise me.
Older and wiser and all that crap. That I should become her lover, for even one night,
was a recipe for trouble.
That Beth popped into my life at the same time that C wanted to remake my life . . . was
I missing something? Probably. I usually do when it was obvious to everyone else. No
doubt they were close, sharing their experiences, perhaps C acting like a tutor for Beth
who was pushing harder than she realized against the boundaries that had dictated her
behavior for so long, and yet by her own admission C had surrendered her role to me. I
doubted that. Their conversations, I surmised, were far more intimate than mine with
Beth. I sincerely doubted that C didn’t know everything that Beth had told me and more.
Timing always a mystery. I’d spent the past year trying to glide into retirement. Bad
terminology. Never been much of a glider. It was funny . . . I felt more comfortable with
or better prepared for the bumps than the glides. The bumpy glide, now technicality
complete, had brought me face-to-face with me in the glide. When I was working long
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hours daily, weekly, monthly I could push me aside. I couldn’t any longer. It was about
me, and more truthfully about me and C.
I was not engaged in any blame game with myself. That can stretch the psyche out of
shape. No, the confluence of events these past weeks could hardly have been predicted
or anticipated: a trial, a suicide, a new lover who knew a earlier beloved, a young beauty
introduced by a woman I’ve loved and am now falling in love with, as she is with me, a
family I have such deep affection for making new plans and accepting new arrangements
. . . oh, yes, my last professional obligation finished, having been confirmed by the
concierge who handed me the receipt of the arrival of the manuscript that he had mailed
when I walked through the lobby.
My calendar for the week ahead showed no appointments – none – the first time I could
remember that happening in decades. My calendar unmarked, my desk uncluttered, my
my mind untied, and yet my head was spinning with stuff . . . new stuff, to be sure, but
spinning nonetheless.
My cell went of, and I thought to myself . . . timing again . . . as soon as I acknowledged
the absence of obligation, something might be popping up.
It was a message from Dell. A memorial service was set for the coming weekend, if I
wished to attend. Just as quickly as I noted how empty my calendar was, I now found
myself “penciling” in electronically the weekend service. Details were to follow, so I
had nothing else to add. I decided to forego the gym today, and instead I muddled myself
a mid-afternoon Old Fashioned. The bright day I first observed through the sliding glass
door had spun rather suddenly, like my life, in a different direction. As I sipped my Old
Fashioned, I began to see splotches of rain on the glass facing the outside. I slept for a
while, and not having eaten since breakfast had been delivered to me and then spilled for
Palooka, I made a sandwich, poured some wine and sat down with the newest Richard
Russo, which I’d picked up earlier in the week. The quiet of the condo – no TV, no
music – was comforting, and earlier than usual I retired.
During the week until Friday, what I might count as my first week in retirement, I
followed a routine that was new but also familiar because it had been rumbling about in
my head for weeks, if not months. When I fantasized about retirement, this was what I
thought it should feel like.
The stock market was improving, and I sold some shares and took some profits. I had no
idea how to spend the profits. I could simply reinvest them. I talked to Gino once or
twice during my daily trips to Small Mall. Nothing was said about C or for that matter
Beth. I decided to leave well enough alone. I worked out every day, much to the surprise
of Claudia. I was always a regular, she observed, but was “super-regular” a word? I
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corresponded with Dell about the arrangements for the weekend. No details about who
would attend, and I was left wondering if I was about to have another encounter with
Natalia. I ate, drank, slept. I did not clean, I checked Facebook and Twitter but posted
nothing of my own, I mulled over ideas for a story I had in mind and I gave ample time
to renewal of my neural dark energy.
One unpredictable . . . the cryptic if not mysterious text messages from C. One message
was "=" preceded by an earlier one with "y"; then came an "a" and a "b" followed by
xxx/xxx, 000/000, an "e" and finally 3 +'s, a pair of parentheses and a heart squared. A
formula that made no sense, and I’d responded with my own cryptic – “Huh?”,
“Huh2?”, “Sigh”, and “Wry or Rye?” and i remained lost in her symbols and signs.
What I did know about this women, who I was missing in ways I’d never experienced
before, what I know was that I could ask what the hell she was saying until I was blue
and she’d just let me turn bluer and bluer. I didn’t ask her, nor did I know where she
was. I didn’t ask about the latter, either.
I spent several hours each days reading Russo and others I hadn’t finished and thinking
about my own stories that I had been composing in my own mind. By midweek I wrote
some lines to try to get a feel for doing what I said to myself I wanted to do. Summoning
images in ways I could write about them was not the same as calling up data and
organizing them in a form that made it possible for them to start writing themselves.
Since time was hardly of the essence any longer, I was growing comfortable with a new
routine. I’d take a page or two of Russo, whose writing and story-telling I admired, I’d
read a few lines, reflect on how it was ordered and how it was received, and maybe I’d
put all this aside and try some lines, scribbling, if that’s possible, on the computer. I
downloaded a bunch of stuff from ITunes, and I seldom turned on the TV. I discovered it
was less intrusive to sign up for alerts and periodic reports on my cell. After years of
managing a sizable stock portfolio – why I did this I don’t know – I was losing interest
in what made the market tick. I’d never bought into the official version of the
marketplace as a superhuman – you had to listen to the market, you can’t outsmart the
market, you had to think like the market – when in fact the market was nothing more
than an aggregation of actions by individuals who were often incompetent in acting. Its
only similarity with humans was that like them it didn’t work well. Besides, I had been
slowly shifting more and more my portfolio to less risky assets. I’d never been a
churner, but now I was only a seldom participant.
On Friday afternoon I was off to the city. I finished Russo just before I reached the city,
hailed a cab and arrived at the Patriarch's mid-town club where a room had been
reserved and where the service would be. I was to join Dell and Marge at their apartment
with other family members. It was a short ride by cab, and, indeed, I was ready for a
drink.
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---“Really glad to see you,” said Marge at the door, who looked as if she been smacked
by a Mack truck. Dell joined us almost immediately.
---“I'm also glad to see you, and how's it going?” I responded, as I hugged Marge and
Dell after Dell took my coat and small case.
---“It's truly morbid,” said Marge sternly, as we entered the living room. There were
family members and old friends, including Scott. I knew everyone, and I made my way
through the small crowd. It did not include the Patriarch and his wife. Nor, the thought
dawned on me, as I shook Scott’s hand, Natalia. I was then handed a martini and
directed to the buffet. Neither Marge or Dell did much cooking, and this, like most of
their non-funeral social events, was catered. I sat down with my drink and plate next to
Scott, who was looking more pensive than usual.
---“How are you handling all this, Scott,” I asked quietly.
---“I might wish I were a man with your training than mine at this point.”
---“I can’t recommend it, Scott. I think you might reach a resolution faster than I’m
going to.”
We smiled without really allowing a laugh.
---“I wish I knew that were true. I’m still hourly sorting through the twists and turns of
the past two weeks. You may have to set up shop just to help us all get to some better
place. It won’t take any longer than if we were on our own.”
---“I'm probably not the ideal choice. How's the Patriarch and Barb?”
---“Not good. I haven’t a clue how they'll manage tomorrow. It strikes me as a potent
combination of deep-seated anger, built up over years because of the prodigal's behavior,
and just raw grief. I've never experienced anything like it. You know how driven the
Patriarch was and, if I may interject, intolerant of waywardness, and that must make it
harder for him to come to terms with this. I suppose, eventually, it's possible that his
anger and disbelief will turn into something like 'for the best', but I don’t know that.”
---“I think you’ve summed it up pretty well, Scott. It's not unique, but that doesn’t make
it any less devastating. Without putting on my psychiatrist's hat, when my alcoholic
brother died in his late forties . . . anger, sadness and lots of questions . . . but after a
while came the realization that death was better . . . no, not better . . . more merciful than
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the misery that his life had come to entail. The two circumstances are different, but the
reactions may not be. How about Dell and Marge and the other family?”
---“Dell has been the glue for so many months, but he's very much on edge, as you
might expect. I hope you get a chance to talk to him because he's pretty much had to
take charge. I haven’t seen you since the evening before everything blew up, so I don’t
know how much you've been told. The personal side is indeed tragic and the legal side is
an utter mess.”
I decided to play dumb, since I didn’t know how much he was in touch with Natalia.
---“I'm not very current. My conversations with Dell and Marge have been brief and
infrequent. I have seen some news reports, but they’re more concerned with the other
participants than with Blister's death because the others are prominent Wall-Street
traders, Blister was not.”
---“I'm sure you'll be filled in, but even with all the information gathered thus far, I'm
still at a loss to explain how this unfolded. Something's missing, and I don’t know how
to find it.”
---“You've always had good instincts, Scott, but this time it may be nothing more than
waywardness, founded on greed. I confess I have trouble with conjuring up the greed
needed to account for Blister's behavior, but, on the other hand, Blister's been much
more of a free agent, out of touch for longer than we may have realized.”
---“You make a good point, and we've all said or thought the same thing. Anyway, I hope
the service brings some closure. I'm not sure it's worth trying to dot all the I's and cross
all the T's. Suicide is something with which I've had no experience whatsoever, so I'm as
ill-qualified as anyone to try to figure it out.”
---“Unless there's some history we're not familiar with, it was probably an act of
desperation – he just wasn’t able to pull it together under the changing circumstances.
I'm not sure this family is well-equipped to handle the baggage, not as much as came
with this. On the other hand, who is?”
Just then Marge joined us with her older sister whom I did not know well. Sally had
gone to school on the West Coast and never came home. She had been married several
times, worked in the film business, had raised a couple kids – a med student and a
computer engineer – pretty much on her own and kept her distance from the Patriarch
and the Compound. I had long known this was not a harmonious family, but I was
always welcome and well-treated, and I tried to stay on good terms with everyone.
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I extended my condolences to Sally, and then she spoke ever so gently to me:
---“I know it is late to ask this, but will you speak briefly tomorrow at the service. There
has been so much back and forth over what to do, but everyone was agreed on you, if
you would do it. It shouldn’t be long. We want to keep it brief simply because there is
still so much frustration, bitterness, anger mixed up with genuine grief that if too much
is said it could make matters worse.”
---“Of course, I’ll speak. And, brevity is my specialty, as you know or may not know.”
With that Marge gave me a hug and Sally and Scott broke out into genuine smiles. It was
a solemn atmosphere, to say the least, in the apartment, and a little humor could be a
palliative. We talked for a few more minutes, and I learned that only two others were
speaking. I sort knew already what I was going to say, except I needed a witty line or
two. I’d have to work on that. I was used to public speaking, but it was not what I
wanted to do with my life. I had assumed that things were not going well, but I had no
idea how discombobulated and disconnected the family world had become. I sensed, as
soon as I had walked into the living room, that there was no abundance of good feeling.
I decided to speak to Dell for a few minutes and then take leave.
Dell brought me up-to-date on several things, as we sipped some good but young
Bordeaux, There were only a few things I needed or wanted to know, and Dell was smart
enough to have figured out the limits. He thanked me, I made the rounds and then he
walked me to the door.
I decided to walk to the club, perhaps twenty blocks, on an evening going from cool to
cold. The city had a way of exuding enough heat to make the walk pleasant. At the club I
decided to stop in the bar, not so much for a drink but a plate of something or other. Dell
and Marge had served a few very small plates, but I had eaten so little I decided I’d try
the club's kitchen. To my surprise the barman suggested I might want to walk a couple
doors down to a neighborhood bistro, and that I did. I found a table outside under the
awning with a upright heater to my right. It was quite comfortable, and I ordered a plate
and a wine that the server had recommended. He knew his business.
It was still early when I checked my cell after it vibrated several times. Text from C,
slightly longer and mostly clearer than usual. “I know you’re in the City, and I sense
you’re in for trouble.” I could not help but text back, “I’m in the thrall of your Sirens . . .
Save me”. What came back shocked me: “Your neurotransmitters are in for an explosive
night!” It was embarrassing to feel an erection coming in a public space. What was C up
to? I thought for a moment she was in the city, and then I saw the figure of someone I
knew, walking down the street toward m, as if I were at the end of a laser. I was. I was
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stuck in place. Before I could take control, I felt her arms twisted tightly around my
body.
---“The barkeep said he’d directed you to this bistro. Come on, we were going to my
place.” She dropped a C on my bill, picked up my coat and scarf and before I could
object, I was walking uptown on Fifth.
We fucked until well past midnight. It was wide open. As I lay on satin sheets unlike
anything I’d ever known, I stared at this woman who I knew but did not know.
---“You have a place in the City? Of course, you have a place in the City. I’m in it. And
if I’m not, I’ve lost it.”
---“One thing you haven’t lost, my love, nor will I ever allow you to lose it.”
---“Is there a story behind this place? It’s . . . .”
---“Small but one of a kind. A gift from a former lover and current invalid. I’ve always
pretended it belong to a friend, even when Gino used it with his City lovers whom
you’ve never met. It’s mine, clear and free. You can plan on spending time here, not
alone, you’re not to be trusted.”
---“And you?”
---“Not to be trusted. But, I’m the proprietress. I like that word, don’t you?”
---“Under the circumstances, I’m not sure.”
---“Let me reassure you. I’m here to end a longstanding liaison that has remained active
during the time of ‘Dumb As Dust” plus a few before him. If I had not miscarried, he
would have been the father of my child, not the man I was married to. A sexless hubbie
drove me into the arms of another who invented the opposite of sexless. An older man, a
scion of a fortune, a sweet and sour guy, if you know what I mean . . . he knew better
than ever to show his sour side to me. It could be more than sour it could be mean. In my
company, though, he was at his best. We had our time in bed, but we also had our other
times – travel, culture, champagne, living – like you, my love, bon vivant with a notable
exception,” as she pinned my arms to my side. I was not about to resist, although my
grimace said it all.
---“He had a small brain. He kept reenacting his upbringing, richer than Fort Knox,
taught by his Mamam and her stable of lovers what to say, not to say, how to act, not to
act, and that was the extent of his education. I saw him infrequently and only for a few
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days, usually here or in Europe or in the Caribbean where we could avoid tete-à-tetes
except for the hours fucking which he did with more style than he managed in day-today living.
---“You need to hear this. I can’t live with it alone anymore. Several years ago he began
to pay for his lifestyle. He was careful about his lovers. That was not what went wrong.
He became impotent. A devastation you can only imagine for someone like him. What
else was there in life for him? Nothing reversed his impotency. He became a recluse. By
then I had title to this apartment plus a yearly allowance for its maintenance. It cost me
nothing. Let me be plain and honest, for once. I have no regrets about our lovemaking.
He owed me nothing. But, Mamam had a different view and, of course, lots of money.
That’s why I never had to talk about it. I had and still don’t have any liabilities.
---“I did not abandon him, you have to know that. I visited him at Mamam’s mansion.
She knew about lovers, that was her way of life. Therefore, she accepted me and more
than that admired me for not abandoning him.
---“Did I love him. Never. And I can see by your expression you have the next question
formulated, but, my love, not tonight. There’s more to my life that you need to know,
and, what is so surprising to me, I’m ready to ’fess up to at last. That is a big change,
thanks to you, D-Man or Ace, not sure which it should be tonight.”
We kissed and then she pulled me inside her for what seemed like the longest fuck I’d
ever had.
It was well past midnight, more like early morning, when she walked me arm-in-arm
back to the club, just a few blocks away. She had a early flight to an unrevealed
destination . . . she counseled patience . . .and when we kissed on the steps of the club
where I was staying, she said, “This is right . . . to fall in love with you.” I agreed. A
doorman, present even at that hour, insisted on calling her a cab. I seconded it.
I sat for a while in my jams to think about what I might say in a few hours, but all I
could think about was what I’d heard and felt for the last three or four hours. Finally, I
could focus on the service ahead. I toyed with several ideas and finally settled on one
approach. I had seldom, if ever, spoken with notes, but I never gave a speech or a lecture
without carefully organizing my thoughts. And, I’d never done an eulogy. I decided to
forgo notes again and count on my long-established public-speaking code of keeping it
brief and simple.
I fell asleep as C’s text reappeared in my mind’s eye . . . “Your neurotransmitter are in
for an explosive night.”XXI
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At 2 PM, the next day, I left my room and walked downstairs to the room where the
memorial was planned. The room was nearly full, and as soon as Sally saw me, she
motioned me to the front. I greeted the Patriarch. He told me his wife was too ill to
attend, but she wanted me to know how grateful she was that I’d agreed to speak. And,
he too thanked me. I knew they were sincere, especially Barb who was never
disingenuous. I asked about her health, and the news was not good. Then, I asked about
him, and he just shook his head and mumbled how awful he felt. I put my hand on his
shoulder and said out of the blue I’d be happy to talk to him or both of them, if that
would help. He thanked me, and I sat down. I knew my offer to talk to them would
remain simply an offer.
Much to my surprise Blister's ex was on the other side of the room. I walked over and
greeted her. She said, “You looked surprised,” and I nodded in the affirmative, and then
she said “Barb”, and I needed no further explanation. Shortly, the service began under
the direction of the rector from the Patriarch's “high” Episcopal congregation. After an
introductory prayer and some remarks to the family by the rector, I heard my name and I
walked to the podium.
I gave my name and very briefly when my friendship with Blister started. I reminded
them that my great fear during the many weekends we were in each other's company
was I would find myself locked in a den with several TV's and would be subjected to
continuous football, starting with a high school game on Friday night and ending with
some beastly professional game Sunday night. And, a worse fear, the fridge would be
filled with beer, which I never drank. By the smiles I could tell that almost everyone in
the room understood the basis of my fear and basis of my humor. Blister's avidity for
football was universally admired and scorned at the same time.
Then I turned toward the family. I was determined to speak as a friend and not a
professional, but what I was going to say arose out of my professional endeavors.
“Humans by their very nature want to know, and when they can’t know, they conjure up
feelings that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable. We may know more than we want to
know about a life and a death and yet not know what we really need to know. Grieving
lets us make adjustments that are needed when the death of a loved one occurs, but it
may not end the sense of loss and the disbelief that accompany that loss. We all have to
learn to live with the loss and the more difficult part of not knowing as much as we think
we need to know. The death of a son, a husband, a brother, a relative, a friend is what we
mourn here at this hour in this place. That requires our strength and our attention, and
we should not try to do more than we can. I salute a friend of many years and many
memories, as I'm sure everyone in this room can share in. Thank you.”
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And I walked toward the family and was met with a series of embraces and whispers. At
the end of the service, less than an hour, I found myself standing next to Scott, whom I
had not seen when I entered.
---“I'm not sure anyone else could have said that to this family and have it be taken
seriously. It has hurt them deeply that so many friends and colleagues, people the
Patriarch supported and saved on some occasions, have literally taken flight.”
---“Not unusual, I'm afraid, under such circumstances. To begin with, people find it hard
to deal with suicides and it doesn’t help much even after criminal activity has been
documented. It's a double curse. I have only modest expectations even under your
skilled direction, Scott, that this family has seen the end of the struggle.”
---“I agree – probably not. This is the wrong time and the wrong place to say anything
about the snowballing legal problems but you can imagine . . . .”
A small reception was planned in a barroom down the hall, and we all began to move
out. I found myself next to the other evil twin, whom, before today, I had not seen in
more than a decade and whose presence I was having some trouble adjusting to. She
took my arm and kissed me on the cheek and said,
---“You hit the right note. Shit, I’d forgotten about all the games weekend after
weekend! Even the evil twin can say thanks, after all we’ve been through.”
We laughed and the I said, “I'm still surprised to see you here. It can’t be easy for you.
Barb has this view of the world that we can all hold hands when the moment requires it.”
---“You’re right. It isn’t easy by any means. It took me several days to figure out what to
do. Finally, I called our old stand-by, Dell, to ask his opinion. He said, if I came I’d be
absolutely welcome, even by the Patriarch. I had the sense that some kind of
abandonment had set in among their large circle of friends and associates. And, as I
looked around the room, I know that’s true. I wasn’t surprised to find you here. You’re
not one to abandon . . . even though you’ve had your share of abandonments, my sweet.”
She threw both arms around me and we both laughed. I’d noticed she was sitting with
another woman during the service, and now I was about to meet her.
We were now inside the reception room, much larger than the room for the service. The
Patriarch was on one side in his wheel chair, which he had foregone in the other room. A
line was forming to pay respects, but I figured I was exempt. There was a table with
some munchies but no drinks. Then, I discovered that we would be served drinks, not
pour or find our own. This was, after-all, one of the city's finest club. I ordered a ginger
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ale since I seldom ever drink before early evening. Blister's ex decided that she had to do
the line, but before she left she simply said,
---“Introduce yourselves, and stay close to him . . . a refuge in a time of storm,” and she
left.
---“Paula,” she said, extending her hand, “I don’t believe I’ve ever met a human ‘refuge’
before.”
---“A new specialty, thanks to . . . .”
---“Yes, her specialty is inventing specialties. And you’re Dr G, I’m told. No first
name?”
---“Not one that’s survived. Paula, however, is name I like, although it seems less
common today.”
---“And, why do you like it?” she asked, a question for which I did not have an answer.
---“Ah, I like female names that end in ‘a's’, and the why of that . . . I haven’t a clue,” I
said as deadpan as I could be.
She laughed, a small controlled but genuine laugh.
---“I won’t ask,” she said as the server arrived with our drinks. “Have I got this right . . .
you were married to the other twin?''
---“That's right. I was the eldest in the crowd – older than Blister and the twins were
younger than him.”
---“Are you in touch with your ex, her sister?”
---“Not in years. Probably not in a decade. And, how are you connected?”
---“We're partners. Not in business but in romance. I didn’t know if you knew.”
---“You’re right, I didn’t know.” I say unable to hide my surprise. “Where are you
living?”
---“Several years ago we moved to California, and we took advantage of that brief
window and married in Santa Rita where we have a consulting business.”
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---“A brief moment of California enlightenment. It will come back, I think, although it
may take a while.”
---“I never know whether to disclose we are married. Not a worry in California and
probably not in the City, but in this family, like her family, perhaps not welcome news.
We travel around the country, and we are careful. I assumed you’re OK with it.”
----“Never was much of a debate for me, but not true with everyone.”
My ex's sister rejoined us, and I asked how it went.
---“Actually, the Patriarch was very gracious. I think he was deeply appreciative that I
made the trip. But, he doesn’t look well to me . . . what do you think?” she asked.
---“I've only talked to Scott – do you remember the family attorney? – about the
Patriarch’s health, and, you’re right, not favorable, for either him or Barb. They’ve not
been in good health for several years, and the burden of the last few weeks has probably
made matters worse faster. This is the first time I've seen him in a year, but the
deterioration can’t be missed.”
---“Dell promised to keep me informed, and knowing Dell he will.”
---“You can count on it.”
---“It's time to go, buddy. Thanks for time together. We're going to drive out to the
Compound to see Barb for a few minutes and then to the airport to catch a flight to
London. I'm assuming you know some things you didn’t know before,” she added with a
wink and then a hug. I shook Paula's hand and wished them well. As they left, I thought
that was the most civil encounter with an evil twin I can remember. As the dynamics of
our lives change, goddamn, our lives change.
Eventually, the receiving line came to an end, and the crowd was rapidly thinning out. I
had asked at the desk earlier when I should check out and they said I could check out
whenever it was convenient. The room was mine until I decided to leave. Typical of the
club and the Patriarch.
I was ready to head home, and yet I thought I should enjoy the rest of the day in the city.
I was undecided, and what happened last night was partly the reason I was undecided.
I had come to the city with the expectation that I might meet up again with Natalia.
Instead, I linked up with C. That’s why I should never try to make things work in a
certain way. I’m a klutz. Better to keep planning to a minimum. How often have I said . .
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. “unfold . . . let it unfold.” Of course, that too is a form of planning . . . planning not to
do anything.
So, Natalia, no plans. As of now, we had our time and our farewell. What was not in the
foreground of her mind when she arrived eventually emerged from its background. I was
not the someone, not yet at least, maybe never, who would be there to come home to.
She was not prepared to live in separation any longer, and she wasn’t sure I was ready to
live in union. For someone who was smart, self-reliant, liberated, she had decided, as
she ended her second marriage, she wanted to settle in, somehow, somewhere.
I stood there, trying to juggle Natalia against the backdrop of last night’s unexpected
assignation – did it qualify as a tryst? – with C. Wasn’t C asking the same question, and,
I might add, wasn’t I broaching it. We were all at different places, and Natalia and I may
have been farther apart than C and I.
---“You seem in a quandary,” I heard behind me.
I knew the voice instantly. I tried not to spin around but failed.
---“Natalia, the magician!” I said. “How do you do it. I was talking to you in my head,
and here you are and where have you been?”
---“Too many questions.” She kissed me on the cheek and moved her hand along my leg.
---“Jesus, Natalia, this is unreal. Kick my shins or something to restore the real.”
---“Have you said your goodbye? It might be time. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs in
the lobby.”
As quickly as she had appeared, she vanished through the door. I watched her leave and
then, as if I snapped to attention, I turned back to face the dwindling mourners.
I could see Dell, Marge and Sally walking toward me, and when they joined me, they
offered, almost all at once, profuse apologies. Their father wanted to go home, an hour's
drive from the city, and they decided they should spend the evening, perhaps the night,
with him and their mother. We had briefly considered dining in the city, but that was out
of the question. They assured me I could stay at the Club as long as I wanted, and they
thanked me for being so generous in their time of grief. I said I was undecided about my
departure, but I was leaning toward a late train home. After hugs I walked over to where
the Patriarch was slumped in her chair. He recognized me, took my hand, a gesture I’d
never experienced with him before. I leaned over and spoke a few words of
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encouragement. When I finished, I realized he was not about to let go of my hand. I
placed my other hand across his, as he dropped his head with a nod but not a word.
I shook more hands, as I was leaving, including Scott’s.
---“Please stay in touch, even though you’ve done more than could be expected from
any friend,” he whispered.
I said I would.
Downstairs in a far corner I could see Natalia. Clothed exquisitely with a large hat that
almost hid her face. Was the hat why I had missed her? No hat could ever cover that
persona.
As she strode toward me, I found myself caught at the end of a second laser beam in the
last 24 hours.
---“We need to freshen up . . . in your room. I know this Club. You can guess how. I’ve
asked Terry to send champagne to you room, which I’m not sure you realize, has an
attached lounge. Surprise, surprise, surprise, as she took my arm and led me past the
desk – nary a glance from the well-trained staff – to the elevator.
During the ride in the elevator, with her arm across my shoulder, little was said, but eye
contact was intense. Was I being judged? Was I being sized up . . . whatever that meant?
I was sure I had locked the door to my room, but she seemingly opened it without a key
or card. She or someone had been in the room. I’d never tried the large folding doors
that were now open into a second room, fully furnished and plated with glass on one
side. It was duly prepared for a time together. We sat on the sofa, her arm once again
around my shoulder. That was the extent of the physical contact.
---“We can talk here,” she said gently.
---“The clouds have parted, and the view through the glass will allow you to watch the
setting sun across Lower Manhattan – a setting sun – a metaphor – more than a
metaphor – for us. At a higher elevation we could see the harbor. From the place where I
lived you could see the harbor and beyond. I would take you there but I’m no longer
welcome. I don’t think the new occupants would approve. Nonetheless, we’ll count this
as our sunset to remember.
---“You will not stay and we will not sleep together tonight, as much as I want that and
you. We’ve both arrived at the same conclusion. You can’t . . . yet . . . give me what I
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need. I’ll let the Good Doctor explain to me, if we have time, why I need it and he
doesn’t. Our earlier parting was hardly romantic, and we both know why. Our parting
tonight will be no more romantic but it will be more honest. Let me amend that, Your
Honor. I will be more honest. That’s what was missing before.
She stood and pulled me up. She turned us toward the glass, which, upon scrutiny I’d
failed to observe, earlier faced scores of other windows. She pulled me close behind her,
leaned into my shoulder and brought my arms around her. As I hardened, she pressed her
buttock against me.
---“We will not fuck, as ready as both of us are. We can kiss, we can snuggle, we can
pretend or you can come, but we will not fuck. Luckily for us, under the circumstances,
I'm in the middle of my period, and I'm a heavy bleeder. I could blow you . . . ML style .
. . but I won't. Not my style, under the circumstances.
---“Don’t worry about them,” she added, nodding to the glass. “We're standing in front
of the equivalent of one-way glass. The Patriarch owns these rooms. All the rooms in the
Club are owned privately. There is no other Club like this left in the City. From the front
the Club has a neoclassical look, solid and quiet. On the back side, just the opposite. I’ve
been in these rooms before, not with the Partriarch, and we’ll leave it at that.
---“One of the reasons I like this position with you is our height. I can turn my head and
instantly line up with your eyes and lips.” We kissed but only for a moment. The lesson
I’d learned quickly was Natalia had to talk and I had to listen. The sunset seemed to
grow stronger and brighter rather than smaller and dimmer. I was captivated . . . again.
In the reflections of the room, which I had not yet fully pinpointed, our naked bodies
glistened.
---“You did not see me last night. I deliberately stayed away, although I was invited. I
heard your remarks today. I’m not telling you how, and you know not to ask. I was
moved by them, and I expect you to speak at my funeral, which may be sooner than
later.
---“California went badly. I’m on the outs with my family because I refused, absolutely
and unconditionally, for the first time in my guilt-ridden, family-dominated 45 years, to
play their game. I had no connection with what happened, no knowledge, no
involvement, nothing. I knew the scoundrels because I’d met them earlier, and that was
it.
---“I packed and left.” There was a pause and I could feel Natalia’s body tense up. I was
not sure why or what to expect.
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---“I saw Sarah. Although it was uncoordinated, her spouse, my cousin, took the same
action I did. He told me he’d had it, and Sarah unloaded, to the extent she would or
could – not in her nature – that distance from the family was what they both needed.
Now they have it, as do I. We’ll eventually make up, but not now or in the near future.
---“Can you handle this? Sarah sends her love.”
I could feel my body tense up. Nothing else, however. Natalia adjusted her stance, her
long arms still attached to my shoulder, her teary eyes in full focus. Oddly, I thought, the
tension, whether sexual or psychic, began to dissipate. That name and the history behind
it carried a certain undeniable force of its own.
---“I returned to the City by way of Ann Arbor. I needed a shoulder. It was probably as
good a time as we’ve had together. I’m not one to show my vulnerability, not even to my
daughter. I did, I confessed to multiple sins and near sins . . . let me assure you the near
sins outnumber the actual sins. I told her about you and us, and why it failed. I’m glad I
finally let go. By the time I got back to the City, I’d found my legs once again. And, you
know I love my legs as much as you do.”
---“That brings us to the now-now. We should sit, but I want us just like this for as long
as possible.”
We did not sit but we turned toward the glass with me behind her, my arms draped over
her chest, her hands clasped over mine.
---“As much as this is an ending, it is also a beginning. Whether or not we like it, we
humans are opportunists, wickedly so. You will be taking the late train home. It will be
opportunistic in its own unpredictable way. When I travel at night, I feel as if I am
crossing unknown boundaries, entering unknown dimensions, not in fear but in search of
that unknown.
---“When I told my daughter about our rendez-vous, I used words I’m not sure I’d ever
used before. I was not mad – it was not a Lucia moment – but I’m not sure I was in
control either. Her demeanor was priceless – what I could see through my tears. My
rendez-vous confession led to other rendez-vous confessions by both of us. We also
drank more than she should have and, perhaps, for the first time in our adult lives, we
fell asleep in each others’ arms. How we felt the next morning not worth discussing
except I knew a marker had been put down, a marker with symbols yet to be
deciphered.”
I wasn't sure the story was finished. She cradled herself against me, as if she had no
intention of ever changing that position. We both stared at the light play on the buildings
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which could not see us. For such a vast expanse of glass it was amazing how isolated
and insulated we were.
---“I could stay here just like this forever,” she whispered without turning her head. “Just
like this.
---“Not granted, is it, D-Man. Not granted. We make our lives so difficult because we
hate simple things. No . . . that's wrong. Simple things bore us. This magnificent
machine you guys keep trying to analyze and dissect hasn't a clue what to do with
simple joys. When they occur, we call them simplistic, sweep them into corners and
search for deeper truths and complicated webs.
---“Right this minute, D-Man, I want you to hold me tightly against your body and never
let go. I think it would be heavenly . . . forever. And, then, my guilt-ridden brain will
kick in, as it did in your kitchen with enough qualifiers to make me into a raving maniac.
---“That's it, D-Man. I can't go any farther. It's too fucking hard to stay with you and too
fucking hard to leave you. It's not the way I wanted it to end. Shit . . . I don't want it to
end, but end it must.”
---“I need nourishment since the lovemaking juices have been shut off. I know a small
bistro down the street,” she said calmly, unclasping her hands and turning away from
me.
---“Holy shit!” I blurted out. I could hear Natalia laugh, the first since we had entered
this inter sanctum.
---“What I say now will not be finished now but at the bistro where she found you last
night.”
I could have fallen over backwards onto the sofa except for the strength of Natalia’s
grip, even though she was literally howling with laughter. Erect and steady, I was once
again her listener, as so often happened in the past.
---“The reason I will not sleep with you tonight or in the near future is obvious. C has
you. Beyond that . . . don’t try to figure it out. If just a hiatus, we can talk about what's
next when the hiatus ends. If it doesn't end, why bother. I’m jealous almost to the point
of violence, but I have my reputation for self-control to maintain.”
---“Oh, champagne’s unopened. It’s yours. Stick it in your bag. A label you can study on
the way home, if I don't ambush you first.”
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An hour later, sitting in about the same spot I sat last night, I ate, listened, drank, said
little, looked bewildered. I may also have looked bewitched. As she kissed me on the
platform, she said as much.
---“I’m not sure I’ve ever knowingly bewitched someone. I love you, D-Man, I love
you.”
D-Man had surprised me, but I had learned at dinner how she came to know.
Entanglement at the subatomic level was mysterious, but no more so than human
entanglements. They knew each other, having met in the City some years ago, socialized
off and on before going their own way and had been unexpectedly thrown together again
because of me. In fact, they had recognized each other at Small Mall, and when they had
ambled off together alone they agreed to play dumb.
Natalia confessed it wasn't hard for either to clam up because each in his own way hated
the fact that the other had claim. They eventually got in touch – something women can
do and men can't – to work out a deal. I had just experienced the deal.
The train was barely filled, this being Saturday, I was able to get a window seat. I was
lost in thought, in amazement, in fear, in transcendence. I knew I’d wake up soon, and if
I didn’t, I was dead. A month ago I was preoccupied with what I could handle, getting
out of academe and into retirement. I did not expect to be thrust into a setting that was
about as foreign as anything I’d ever know. I’d had lovers and trysts but they had not
prepared me for what I had experienced with two women in the last 24 hours, in the last
two weeks. I awoke as I heard the conductor call out the name of where I hoped I still
lived.
After I hoisted my body into the cab, I pulled out my cell, which I’d turned off hours
ago. Two texts I could not avoid reading.
---“Your neurotransmitters exploded again tonight. We’re both cleaning up old stuff
because I love you.” And the second . . . two addresses and two phone numbers . . . one
set marked with an asterisk.XXII
At home in front of the long-neglected sliding glass door I studied the bottle of
champagne in the dim indirect lighting, and, then, turned on my Mac and looked up the
estate.
---“O My God,” was what the door and the walls heard. I put it away in the rack set
aside for special champagnes. Actually, the rack was bare at the moment.
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I thought about opening wine but instead poured a big, a very big, shot of Baker’s. I
knew the medical advice that booze late at night before bedtime could mean
sleeplessness because booze took energy to digest. Sound advice except I had no plans
on retiring. Maybe by dawn I’d be ready.
How could I want both? Insanity. But, I wanted both. That was not how I felt when I left
for the City to honor a death. That death was honored. That was the real thing in the real
world. The rest?
Resistance, what the moralists and ethicists would counsel, never entered the equation.
And, I was not a bad man for that flaw that I refused to recognize as a flaw. I was a man,
however, in love with two women, if not more.
The deepening night was what I saw through the glass door. It was not the view of a few
hours ago. The dying embers of a city I love and of a romance I spurned. Well, I had
some help in the spurning department. I could feel myself hardening. I needed the
darkness of the night to tamp down my emotional state.
Was I 13 years old again? How did I know? I had no recollection of that year. I was
playing in my fantasy world, and I had to stop.
If I was experiencing insanity, what were they experiencing? This was not one-way. This
was more layered than I could figure out. I was seemingly being encouraged to love the
other woman, but I wasn’t sure how sane I was when I thought this was happening. And
yet, there were two texts on my phone next to me that seemed, not to prove my sanity
but to dispel my doubt.
I sipped my Baker’s, awash in what photons remained in the night, when I remembered
a novel whose title and author escape me in which the male character, far less scrupulous
than I have been, arranged a ménage à trois only to have the two women make love over
his body, totally ignoring him. Given their styles, I could not for a moment imagine how
I could fuck both of them at once. Not possible. Unfortunately, I could imagine both of
them making love over my prostrate torso.
The question I didn’t want to ask:
---“Me? Why me? In my twilight. Erections still attainable, semen still flowing, but I
wouldn’t make any bets.”
I was not a Reichian. I knew Wilhelm Reich’s work well because one of my professor
had become his staunch critic. The class actually spent time in those orgone boxes . . . I
even remembered their dimensions of 5.5 by 2.5 . . . made of layers of wood and sheet
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metal and designed to pull psychic energy from the atmosphere into the person.
Needless-to-say, the class could hardly contain its laughter, as we crawled in and out of
those contraptions.
---“Freud invented the libido,” proclaimed our professor, “Reich opened it to the
public.”
He also noted wryly that orgasms for all and frequently was probably more pleasurable
and certainly less expensive a cure than psychoanalysis. Why was I thinking about Reich
after years, if not decades, of ignoring him? Because I was experiencing the opposite of
the pleasure of the orgasm, I was experiencing angst. Too much psychic energy even
without ever entering the box.
Of course, I knew better. The angst derived from something quite identifiable. Two
lovers, neither of whom I wanted to abandon and both of whom I could not have. When
I wasn't with Natalia, I wanted to be with C; and, conversely, when I wasn't with C, I
wanted to be with Natalia. Somewhere in that mix were past loves not to be renewed.
My addled emotions were by choice. We liked to ascribe these moments to forces
beyond our control. There were moments shaped by forces beyond our control. This was
not one. I simply refused to make a decision, which could be made. There was not a cell
in my brain, an experienced or inexperienced cell, young or mature, that did know what
was going on. I liked being chased, having two women to choose from, sharing lives and
loves. I was willing to let it play out because I didn't want to end it.
A basic fear did operate at some depth I didn't want to probe right now. That fear derived
from the possibility that under the best of circumstances, if I made a choice, I could not,
no matter how hard I tried, make it permanent. I feared permanent for what it was as
much as for how elusive it was. It was impossible to figure out whether I was in love
more with one than the other. Not quantifiable or calculable. I was hardly prepared to
fall in love at all with anyone a month ago. I had idealized a life of quiet and reflection,
at least for a time, once retirement had begun. Not even close, and yet, to be absolutely
honest with myself, what had begun with a simple phone call from a friend to aid
another friend had unleashed certain energies that had landed me in a place I did not
expect to be. I had no choice but to deal with it. How I would do that was really the
source of my angst.
I sat for hours, perhaps dozing occasionally but never for long, turning over in my
addled mind what had transpired. I wanted to pull the Mac onto my lap and start to
scribble, but I lacked the energy and focus. I had to count on my memory for later, and
who knows what it would do with these events. Over the years of living mostly alone. I
had known moments and days of sadness. Sometimes, though, we seek loneliness to
escape the jarring world and life around us. Was I leaning toward some time alone with
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my thoughts, my fears, desires, all mixed up together? In the middle of the night with a
little Baker’s left, I wasn’t sure if that was where I were headed for a while. I could
almost measure the rhythms, different rhythms, of fucking Natalia and C. One with a
destination in mind, and the other wide open without destination.
Since I now knew that the two women had been in touch after Natalia’s visit and their
encounter at Small Mall, their first, I'd thought wrongly, and only meeting.
---“We had to make peace” was how Natalia had put it. Then, she added,
---“I thought I had balls – excuse the misappropriated organ – but I’d met my match. She
has lived the life I’d misconstrued I’d been living. Had we joined in battle, we would
have destroyed each other. Never will be close friends but never will be out of touch
either. I need not tell you what to do. You know.”
Oh, how I wish I did.
I finally fell asleep, and when I awake, I realized I’d hauled myself into my bed. It took
a minute or two for me to grab part of the fading memory of a discomforting dream. I
was in a deep hole with no apparent exit and only a tiny lit opening far above me. I
could hear a voice that sounded commanding, perhaps even angry, but was virtually
unintelligible. At the very end before I woke I had been transferred to another place, was
standing in front of a black curtain and had just spoken without knowing what I had
said. I knew that black had many explanations in dream therapy, usually not positive. A
portentous sign, associated with the unconscious, almost always described in black,
death coming or having already come (Blister, of course, came to mind). Hole and black
often are combined in dreams and underscore each other, although a black hole or a
black curtain may signify a great unknown. I couldn’t help but think of Orozco's black
door or the painter’s black shape on the canvas I owned, both to enter and not to return.
A curtain, usually a veil, that hides and warns – perhaps an unexpected event or person.
Voices in dreams have many meaning – directing, criticizing, hectoring or with
unintelligible voices adding to the uncertainty and confusion. I lay awake and thought
about the dreams for a while, and I decided, given my frame of mind last night at the end
of a tumultuous few weeks, I was lucky not to be trying to erase nightmares.
I’d been thinking about change for months if not years, and now my left and right sides
were sparring with each other over how to terminate and how to proceed. I was sloshing
around in the arms of the “unexpected”.
I heard my cell, not once, not twice, but . . . I’d lost track. I had no idea what time it was
or for that matter where my cell was. The ring ended, and I lay in bed for a few minutes.
I could delay no longer, and I emerged from the cocoon of my bed covers. I walked into
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the Great Room and then into the kitchen where I finally saw the cell with its red light
flashing. I should have been more curious, but I wasn’t. Was this one of those moments I
preferred solitude to engagement? I smiled at that thought because I knew it was not to
be, as my cell began to ring again. In the old days I could feign an overbooked schedule.
I could no longer lie about my schedule. I had basically a blank schedule for as far ahead
as I could see. I smiled again. It will take a while. Peet's would bring form to the
morning or what was left of it.
I was startled to hear the cell go off a fifth. a sixth or seventh time since being
awakened. I had put on the water kettle and had ground the coffee and had left the
kitchen for the bathroom without the cell. I doubted I could reach it before the ringing
stopped.
When I finally cradled my cell in my hand, I could see on the screen not only phone
messages but other messages as well. With a cup of coffee and my cell I walked to the
sliding glass door. Much too cold to open it in spite of a big, bright sun, and I sat in the
nearby chair. I started scrolling through the messages that my cell organizes by time
regardless of the source or mode. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Except maybe for C, none
of the others would I have expected. Another sip of coffee and I decided to look at
Lizzi's first. She seldom sent email or texts, preferring almost always to call. But this
was an email.
Glad to see me at the autumn fest and all that, then to the point: would I willing to join
her and several others in a very troublesome academic project because she thought I was
better equipped than any of them to find a resolution. I could expect to be paid the usual
fee on an ad hoc basis. I couldn’t imagine that they had a matter that the staff couldn’t
resolve. More pertinent, of all the people I knew Lizzie would be the last to call upon
my services unless she was desperate, and Lizzie was seldom desperate. Something else
was afoot, so I decided to wait and think before I answer. Maybe she’d send me more
information before I had to decide. She knew and certainly I knew that stepping back
into the pool so quickly after exiting was not something I wanted to do.
Then, I scrolled to C’s texts, all of which asked the same thing: did I knew anything
about Beth's disappearance? Of course, I knew nothing about Beth disappearance at
which point I noticed that the next set messages listed by my cell may be from the
disappeared Beth. We had exchanged numbers, I remembered, and her number was in
my phone directory. Before opening Beth’s messages I noticed a voicemail from an
unknown number. Was it connected, I thought immediately, to the Beth or C?
I opened Beth first message to learn she was in hiding and needed help, could be
reached either by phoning or texting. All her messages contained the same information.
Before trying to reach her I decided I’d better check voicemail for the unknown number.
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It was from a Gordon who claimed to be a close friend of Beth and solicited my help to
bring her back to her family and friends. Who was this guy, and how did he get my
number?
I knew in an instant what was afoot. I had to deal with Beth first, to be sure she wasn’t in
immediate danger. I called the number, and she answered on the second ring.
---“It's you. Oh, thank the Good Lord with whom I haven’t been on very good terms
lately,” she said, almost in desperation.
---“I think the Good Lord will understand. Are you safe?”
---“I'm safe so long as no one can find me, but I fear I’ll eventually be found out.”
---“Is Gordon one of those who might be trying to find you?”
---“Oh, my God, yes, how did you know?”
---“Do you have transportation?” I asked without answering her question.
---“No, but I can arrange for a taxi, although I don’t have much money.”
---“Call a cab immediately, and give the cabby this address. I’ll cover the fare. Do it now
and call me once you’re in the cab.”
---“OK.” She hung up.
I decided that I could at least preoccupy this Gordon guy, so I called his number.
He answered, and I introduced myself. He thanked me for calling back, and I decided
without any further evidence that he was a ministerial type who was not to be trusted.
---“I'm a mentor to a woman named Beth, whom I'm told by her family you know. She
has disappeared, her family is desperate to find her and I've been retained to assist in that
effort.”
I knew my job was keep this guy on the phone until Beth called. I decided to play along
rather than demand to know why he was interested in her.
---'If she had disappeared, I'm sure they must be very upset, yes, I'm sure they must be . .
. .” as Gordon broke in with,
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---“Yes, indeed, they are, but they are cared for. Have you any knowledge of Beth?”
---“Let me be sure I have the right Beth – I know several . . . .”
He used her last name, and quite honestly I could say not a name I recognized because I
did not know Beth's last name.
---“The Beth I'm referring to maintains the lawns for the Del Ciccos . . . .”
---“Ah, yes, a wonderful family, she cares for the lawns . . . let me see, a rather tall,
lanky, young woman with a pony-tail . . . . I didn’t finish my sentence before he broke in
again in greater exasperation. I knew I had made the right assessment. He was not to be
trusted.
---“Yes, yes, yes, what do you know about her whereabouts?”
---“Her whereabouts . . . I thought she lived on the farm. Is she not there? Why do you
think she's disappeared?”
Just then my cell indicated an incoming call, and I said to Gordon before he could
answer,
---“Gordon, please hang on while I take this incoming call” and I switched to Beth.
---“Where are you,” I said as calmly as possible, “I have a Gordon on the line
---“Oh,” I heard her say, “he's known as a ‘snatcher’.”
---“I’d figured that out. Stay calm . . . he's not going anywhere nor is he going to learn
anything from me . . . ask the driver where you are . . . .”
---“I know where we are, maybe five minutes from your house.”
---“Good, I'm heading downstairs. Hangup.”
---“Ah, Gordon,” as I in my bathrobe started out the door. “I've been paged by the
hospital for consultation, but before I go, let me ask again what I can do for you,” I said,
I as took the stairs rather than the elevator.
---“It was my understanding Beth was in consultation with you, and I wanted to reassure
the family.”
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---“No, she's not in consultation, if I have the right Beth, you must be misinformed.” I
headed out to the driveway.
---“I'm obviously misinformed, and I'm sorry to have taken up your time . . . .”
Before he could hang up I assured him that I was prepared to help in any way I could, he
should stay in touch and he was free to give my name and number to the family. Just
then, the cab pulled into the driveway.
---“Thank you,” he said with a sigh and hung up. I embraced Beth, paid the cabby with a
sizable tip and rushed Beth into the lobby and the elevator.
A few minutes later we were safely in the apartment.
---“Well, this was not on my agenda when I woke this morning. Are you OK?”
---“I can’t say it wasn’t on my agenda – yesterday I knew something was up and I barely
slept last night, and I left before dawn this morning without telling anyone. I'm OK
now.”
---“I have a lot to catch up on, but, for now, put your bag in the guest room, take a
shower if you wish and curl up in bed for a while. I have some instructions to impart to
the concierge who, you will be happy to know, is a retired police officer. I should also do
some shopping. You will be absolutely safe here, but do not use your cell until I return
nor answer the door. You may not have noticed, but the door is opened not by a key or a
card but with a combination. I know it, as does the concierge. I’ll show you how to use it
when I return.”
I did not tell her C knew the combination as well.
---“No admissions. There is a peephole, and if you’re suspicious about anything outside
the door or in the hall, there is a number on the wall by the door to call. The concierge
can be trusted. OK, I’ll be back in about forty-five minutes. What would you most like
to eat?”
---“Something light, maybe a salad, an egg something or other, even chicken-noodle
soup? I don’t know. I trust your judgment. And . . . thanks,” she said in soften but
relieved voice.
I showed her the intercom and the number on the posted list to call. I dressed more
quickly than usual, grabbed my bag and left, making sure the door was locked and the
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hallway was clear. Downstairs, I conferred with Dominique, who had worked here as
almost long as I’d lived here. We had actually been through this before when several
clients had needed a secure place. Dominique assured me that surveillance would be
beefed up. I reminded him that snatchers pay money, big money, to get what they want. I
knew he understood since he had told me about cases he’d had during his policing
years.XXIII
I usually walk with leisure to the Small Mall, but not this time, although I did not want
to appear alarmed or rushed. I checked the traffic and the parked vehicles but nothing
aroused my suspicion. At the Small Mall I had a brief conversation with Gino and one or
two others, but nothing was said about Beth. I decided that until I knew more I should
say nothing about where she was. In under an hour I had returned to my building where
Dominique signaled from his office no intruders and I proceeded to my floor. I opened
the door quietly, dropped my bags in the kitchen and checked the guest room to discover
she was asleep. I called Dominique to tell him all was well. I sat down to think about
what should be done next. I had a feeling that it would be pretty much my call. Even if
they discovered her whereabouts, snatching her in these quarters would not be easy, and
they weren’t so stupid, I assumed, to try. But, if we stayed here, our movements would
have to be terribly confined. So, how to pull this off?
An hour or so later Beth awoke and joined me in the Great Room. She did not look fully
rested but certainly better than when she arrived. I fixed her some soup – made by
Gino's elves – and a small sandwich. I produced one of my lacquered trays that had
caused Natalia to exclaim – "How vintage!" – and we sat in front of the sliding glass
door. I knew I had to ask some questions. I was on her side, but there was much I did not
know and would have to know, if I were to play the role of guardian. How and what she
answered would tell me a lot. I would take it slowly, but time was not necessarily on our
side.
Very quickly I learned that Gordon may not be such a threat. Beth had been in touch
with her family, had reiterated her determination to look at a different course for her life
and had apparently won grudging support from her family to do so. Further, her father
talked to her pastor and asked for no further intervention. She was quick to add that the
pressure was coming not from her family but from other powers. That's why she was
worried. She asked me if she should tell her family about the sexual encounters – she
hadn’t done so and didn’t want to – and I knew the answer to that question without
thinking. We wanted to reduce the tension, not ramp it up. Worrying about a family
confessional would simply add another layer of tension. I replied in a manner that would
reassure her that the decision not to “confess” was the proper course, although I added
“for now”. I was sure that the familiar modus operandi for much of her life was to
confess, demanded of herself and her family and church, as a means to keep her in
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check. The straight and narrow was never as straight and narrow, as described. She was
now caught in one its crooks. Exploring the crook would evolve over time.
I never belonged to the school that argued everything had to laid out in detail to begin
the process of recovery. Time and protection was what she needed right now. Once her
comfort level had grown, she could decide about confession. I could think of all sorts of
reasons why her prior sexual encounters unless there was a criminal element I didn’t
know about, shouldn’t remain restricted and confidential. After-all, she was of age.
Whether or not she consented remained unclear, based on what she’d told me thus far. I
wasn’t interested in pursuing it until she felt ready. We’re not expected to reveal all our
bedroom trysts unless they shredded our psyche. That did not appear to be the case for
her. The strength of her psyche was more evident than its weakness. I did not know at
this point the degree of complicity or coerciveness that her affair with the Coffee Baron
entailed. Its determination would have to wait. I did not mean to dismiss the vulturism of
the Baron, but this did not have the markings of a sexual onslaught. I may change my
mind, as I learned more. The aftermath was ugly, but the struggle in her life, perhaps not
then but certainly now, was over core beliefs. Sexual behavior was a part of that but not
the essence of it.
We took a break. I offered to make some Afternoon Tea, confessing I’d never learned the
difference between Morning Tea and Afternoon Tea. Beth jumped up with more spirit
than I had expected and said,
---“Let me, although I may need some direction in your kitchen.” She reached out her
hand to lift me out of my chair. From the grip and the pull I could feel the strength in her
arm, all those years of managing heavy equipment.
After we settled in our chairs again with the tea paraphernalia spread out on a tray in
front of us, I warned Beth I often spilled as much tea when served in these tiny cups,
fine china inherited from my mother, as I drank. She pulled out a large napkin, hidden
somewhere in her chair . . . how could I not have missed it since her chair was the twin
of mine . . . and indicated she was prepared. The atmosphere was lightening up.
I asked her if she wanted to continue our conversation or turn to something else. She
thought for moment and replied we should continue. She knew there were things I
needed to know now that she was a guest in my house. To my surprise, she turned
toward me, smiled and let me know that she knew more about me than I did about her. I
thought of C, of course, and her “wicked” ways.
I felt I had the lead to ask the question that I thought I would have to delay. Not directly
but more obliquely – her current status with the Baron or the church. I wanted to know if
she had talked to the Baron since she had threatened him or talked to her pastor about
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him or signed any promises or covenants about the affair? She had seen the Baron at a
distance in church, she had not talked to her pastor or anyone else except me and C
about the affair and had signed no documents.
That led me to my next question . . . the presence and role Gordon? She knew who he
was but had never had a conversation with him. He was a member of the congregation
and a confidante of the pastor. She’d heard him referred to as “enforcer” but never as
snatcher. She had never asked what enforcer meant, although now she had a pretty good
idea what his job description was. Gordon was also a friend of the Baron, but again she
did not know in what capacity. She would greet to him when he came to the café, serve
him his coffee and that was the extent of her contact. After a pause, she bowed her head
and said softly,
---“My guess is he knew what happened between me and the Baron.”
---“A good guess. Do you think your family requested he call me?”
---“No, absolutely not,” came an unmistakable response.
---“Who warned you yesterday that something was afoot?”
There was silence that was also unmistakable. I knew I had touched on something that
we may not want to pursue right now.
---“One other person knows what I’ve told you and C. She has been a close friend for a
long time. I now realize that my confidence in her may have been misplaced. I don’t
know for sure. Things happened so quickly yesterday or last night I’m not sure what to
think. She said I should meet her at a certain location that we often used to get away and
have some fun on our own.
---“I was ready to meet her when C called.”
From where, I wondered, since I had no idea where she was.
---“C said, ‘Not on your life. Stay away.’ It hadn’t even dawned on me that some
conspiracy was in the making with my best friend leading the way.”
---“C’s intuition is extraordinary,” I said in the pause that ensued.
---“C asked me if there was a place I could go to where I’d be safe for the next few
hours until she could reach someone to help me. At that point, I realized that she was not
in the city, and I assumed the people she wanted to reach were family or friends I
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already knew. I gathered up a few things, called a cab and went to an all-night shelter
where I helped out several times a month. I simply said I’d come in on a different day
because I would not be able to show up on my appointed night. No questions were
asked. Around dawn – does that woman ever sleep – I got a message from C to text you.
She gave me your number, although I already had it. I did, you know the rest of the
story.”
---“Do you have any idea how Gordon came up with my name and number?”
---“None, unless someone has hacked into my phone directory. Is that possible?”
---“Probably possible, although I don’t know how it's done, and I doubt if it's qbeen
done. Actually, my cell number could be found on the web without much effort. How
did he know to look for me?”
---“I have a suspicion . . . nothing else . . . that they’ve being tailing me and taking notes
of place I go and people I hang out with, including the Del Ciccos and their friends. That
would include you. When I thought again about the autumnal celebration and my
picking you up, I had to wonder if I wasn’t being tailed. If they recorded your address, I
assume they could work through various Internet sites to find out more. In addition, the
network the church belongs to has a huge database operation that Gordon could also
have used.”
---“Presto! I think you’ve got. They would have had no trouble following the Grey Fox
to this address and working from that information.”
Beth’s story did not end there. I learned that the Baron was a very powerful figure – not
something that surprised me – in various religious circles because of his wealth and
alleged generosity, a generosity used to cover up other sexual sins. In fact, she knew that
he had recently been interviewed by the police in connection with another incident. No
one knew, however, what course he would take as the pressure mounted. Like a cornered
anima, he might strike unexpectedly in a mad rush to try to escape.
I was certain by now we needed more information, and I was certain that Dominique
could get it for us. We both agreed it was not yet safe for her to venture out on her own
or even in my company. Welcome to your new prison, I said, in hopes it would lighten
the mood. She smiled.
The conversation turned in a direction I hadn’t expected. Again, as an analyst, especially
in my early years when I was being observed, I was criticized for seemingly losing
control over the direction of the conversation. I never felt that was happening, but my
mentors and associates did. I got rather low scores for not being assertive enough, for
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allowing the patient to redirect the questioning before I had finished the prior inquiry.
My problem was that I got curious as to where the conversation might go, and it might
go somewhere that was more rewarding than if I tried to direct it. I always knew there
was a risk that the conversation would dip back and forth between what the patient
wanted to talk about and should be talking about. I never considered it a big risk. Of
course, this was not technically analysis, so I was going to follow her lead.
---“What's caused me so much pain the last week is that I began to realize how much of
life I’d missed and I’d never be able to recapture. I suppose I felt that way because I had
such a good time at last weekend's party, and, yet, I kept asking myself, if I should've
had such a good time. I'm twenty-eight, I have a high school diploma, not particularly
distinguished because I was schooled at home, I can operate a mowing machine but have
few other skills. I draw a lot and wish I knew more about technique and style, but I don’t
go to museums. I spend time with friends in Bible reading, and that carries over into
eating pizzas and snickering at secs. I have visited a few places but have spent most of
my life right here and the most chilling and aggravating thought has been why do I, why
do we, spend so much time worrying about the afterlife and not this life? To be honest, I
want a different life, but am I up to it? Then, along came a new threat with a new twist,
and for the last twenty-four hours I've been on the run. Can this be the life I want to
live?”
---“As you think about a different life, do you suffer any physical pain or do you enter a
mental state that worries you?”
---“Yes and no. At time my stomach feels in knots and my mind starts shutting down. It
doesn’t last long, and it hasn't gotten any worse than the first time I had such feelings. At
least, I don’t think so. It helps when I think that this is not entirely my fault, and maybe
none of it is my fault. Then, I begin feeling sorry for the discomfort I've caused, and it
goes back and forth like that. I have so little money since I'm owed for the work I've
done on the farms by my parents that I'm limited in where I can go and what I can do to
try to forget for a few minutes.”
---“I think you'll be taken care of in the near term. Money is not an issue for any of us
who are now involved. You can stay as long as need be. I assume you’re not going back
to work for your family any time soon. More importantly, you’re safe now. A snatching,
if that's what they have in mind, could happen, but it won’t be easy, and since seasoned
snatchers probably try to figure out the risk, I’d be surprised if they’ll proceed with
whatever plans they had now that you’re here. In the meantime, we can try to work
through some of the guilt you have piled up.”
---“I'm beginning to realize that I'm as secure as I've been since this all started. I’ll figure
out a way to repay you.”
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---“You can work on that in your spare tune. You've had a long twenty-four hours, and
maybe you need some downtime. I have food for a light supper, and I will probably have
a drink since it's my daily custom. In case you’re wondering, I never drink more than
one or two, and I stay absolutely sober.”
She laughed, and added “That's a disappointment. I was hoping to use my conversion kit
to redeem you.”
---“Gee, never having seen a conversion kit being applied . . . perhaps I should depart
from my usual.”
---“Not tonight, I am too tired. Let me help you get supper, and then I’ll probably retire.”
---“You may have noticed your room has a TV with cable. It is seldom used. You can
thank a former lover who worked in that room when she was visiting and had to have a
TV, which was more important than I was, it turned out.”
---“She just worked in that room?”
---“I’ll take the fifth on that. Let’s say the TV didn’t save the relationship.” We headed to
the kitchen.
Beth was asleep by eight o'clock, and I took advantage of time by myself to do some
reading and thinking. Just as I was finishing my glass of Bordeaux vin ordinaire, near
nine o’clock, Dominique showed up at the door with some information that he had
collected form his former colleagues. He felt that the danger was small in part because
the police were conducting interviews with members of the congregation over other
matters, and he doubted that a snatching would ever be carried out under such
circumstances. He expected to have more information tomorrow, but the officer-incharge had been informed of Beth present location and my role.
---“And in case you’ve entertained different thoughts, Dom, nothing romantic or
sexual,” I said teasingly. Dom had always had an eye for beautiful women.
---“Why, Dr G, I know you’re a bit of a rascal, but even you aren’t that kind of rascal.”
We laughed, and I slapped him on the back, as he exited.
When I walked past the closed door to Beth's bedroom on my way to my bedroom I
heard not a sound. That's a good thing I thought. It was earlier than usual for me, but I
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was almost as tired as she must have been. I checked my cell before retiring only to
discover a text message from C. Somehow I’d missed it. She asked if B was with me.
I sent an affirmative reply. She responded immediately with “Old Reliable & New
Desirable!”. I wondered how much Beth knew about us, at least the recent us. As I
switched off the light and lay back, I wondered how much I knew about us.
I fell asleep thinking that a potential kidnapping was one way to subdue the Reichian life
I’d been fretting about . . . .XXIV
When I awoke in the morning, I could hear the wind howling. I looked out the window,
in which I’d never installed a drapery or a blind, only to discover swirling snow flakes.
Had I missed the weather forecast for today? Indeed, I had plus all the rest of the news. I
was less and less interested in current events. I’d spent a lifetime supporting various
liberal political causes and, as a young man, had marched in behalf of civil rights and
against war. Those were politics I could understand, not this contemporary carp that had
nothing to do with solving anything. Politically, I’d become a curmudgeon.
I walked into the kitchen only to find Beth seated at the bistro table.
---“Good morning,” she said in a more buoyant spirit than I remembered from last night.
---“You slept well, I hope, in your new cell?”
---“My new cell, religious or penal? I did,” she replied.
---“Probably neither. We'll have to find another description or definition. I see you have
tea, but would you like coffee?”
---“I’ll stick with the tea. Maybe tomorrow. My stomach is not quite ready for coffee.”
---“I know that feeling, but I always choose coffee unless I'm near death.”
---“Not good to tempt death – I could give you a lesson on the work of the devil.”
---“I'm afraid the devil's already given up on me. I'm assuming there's another place for
people like me?”
---“I’ll check on that . . . later.”
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I then filled her in on my conversation with Dominique last night, as I plunged the
Peet's.
---“Both Dominique and I agree that whatever the risks were twenty-four hours ago,
they have diminished. But, having Dominique as the concierge is almost like having
your own body guard as long as you’re in the building. I’ll introduce him to you later
today.”
---“I'm not quite sure what's going on with the church and the police except when I
talked to my parents they were agitated not only about me but about the police. I'm not
sure I want to know the details right now. Do you think I could be dragged into the
investigation?”
---“I don’t know, although Dominique may have more information today. The police
know that you’re living here. We'll just have to wait and see.”
I poured my coffee and sat at the table with Beth.
---“You may want breakfast, and I can fix eggs, or cheese and toast, one or two other
things. I even have cold cereal, but I hate cereal, hot or cold, and only eat it when my
mind has ceased functioning.”
---“Even in a religious household that relies on the power of the Almighty, we are
instructed to eat hearty breakfasts.
---“I agree with the hearty part so long as it isn’t cereal, yogurt, grains within grains and
other things I've never tried. Eggs, perhaps some sausage once in a while, toast, jelly,
peanut butter, cheese and sometimes cheese on peanut butter . . . .”
---“Ugh, that sounds awful, almost ungodly . . . .”
---“Most of the world agrees with you. I assume God does too. What's your choice? It
could be peanut butter and cheese if you put your mind to it.”
---“Some toast and cheese without the peanut butter?”
---“Can do,” as I poked my head into the fridge.
---“You know how inexperienced I am with certain ideas and topics that the secular
world is generally familiar with. Last night, I think I had a dream about longing – that's
what stuck in my mind as I woke up. I don’t remember the details, but I was sitting here
before you woke and I was thinking that the exploration I'm on may make me wish for
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what I'm leaving and lead to further complications. Am I making a mountain out of a
molehill? What my Father was always saying, when we asked questions he didn’t want
to answer.”
I did not answer immediately. Longing was a state of mind that had many interpreters. I
had no doubt that Beth's dream arose from the mind's effort to deal with the disruption,
the uncertainty, the fear that recent events had imposed. I wanted to be careful, however,
not to misrepresent where she was at the moment in her unexpected struggle. Longing
was often tied to religious journeys in search of repose or solace for the soul. It was not
particularly a word or idea I wanted to deal with right now.
---"I think you partially answered your question. You're considering – in fact, you've
moved beyond just considering – you've taken concrete steps that could change how you
want to live. I know that some evangelicals and charismatics argue trying to live in this
world as a child of God means abandoning it in order to prepare for the afterlife. I was
about to say you may have realized you had taken that step, but quite honestly, Beth, I
think you do realize it.
---"It's a big step, and that you have doubts and fears and questions that pull you back
into the life you're moving away from can be expected. Longing is something we all
endure. We long for a lost love, a missed opportunity, a new direction, and for most of us
most of the time we are pulled apart by these longings. In addition to longings of the
soul in both eastern and western religions, the other longing we all too familiar with is
romantic and sexual. That was what Freud latched onto and why longing belongs to that
larger class of emotional maladies we call melancholia. Longing is a desire, and when
desires are frequent and unfulfilled, they can affect the chemistry of the brain with
uncertain results. Melancholia can become a form of depression, and that's why we
shrinks worry about any signs or symptoms of such.
---"We have to be careful, however, not to overreact. I too abandoned my religious code
for a different code because I desired a different life. For me the desire was so strong
that being pulled back into the life I'd known never a chance. That's not true for you.
You're debating, struggling, probing. At this stage, I don't think you can turn off the
spigot. In short, you've probably gone too far. That's not necessarily bad or dangerous so
long as you keep tabs on where you are. I suspect, even though we don't know much
about how dreams originate, that your was a reminder – perhaps a chemical reminder –
of what's going on in your life.
---"In situations like this, awareness is crucial. One thing we observe in therapy is that
patients find ways to minimize awareness. It's frightening and unsettling to think about
the things that have been swirling around in your life recently, but it's helpful to remain
in touch with what's happening and, we both know, may continue to happen."
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I wanted to stop there. Reassure her that she was in a place, mentally and emotionally
speaking, that was still manageable. I waited for her to signal what should be next.
---“I suppose I woke up and began to worry that I was heading because of my own
arrogance into some dark place that would be worse than what I was unlinking myself
from."
I brought my egg to the table and sat down. Beth had already finished her toast and
cheese. I handed her a couple of Oreos, which I always had for breakfast. I was also
thinking how to go forward without going too far forward. There was still much I did not
know. I decided to try to answer in such a way to move the conversation off the subject
of longing can lead to deeply-disturbed mental states. I did not think that her longing, as
she put it, pointed in that direction.
---"Let me ask a straightforward question: do you feel out of control or on the verge of
losing control?" This might be a no-no for some therapists, but my instincts told me I
knew what the answer was, and, further, after the conversations we've had since meeting
at Gino's table, I get an honest answer.
Beth took a few minutes before she said in a very normal voice – a good sign – "No."
I let her continue, although I was unpaired for what I heard.
---“Since I haven’t noticed any couches or pharmaceuticals here, am I to assume when
the time comes I’ll be treated in upright chair facing a sliding glass door?” she said with
an obvious smirk.
I laughed.
---“The couches are hidden in the walls. I use them mainly for naps. And, the pharms?
Teas for you and booze for me.”
Beth laughed, as she stood and collected our dishes.
---“Some therapists and psychoanalysts long for couches and will make every effort to
keep the couch-business going. We may have to treat them for their developing neuroses
or psychoses . . . .”
---“With drugs, no doubt,” came Beth’s quick-witted retort.
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---“No doubt,” I said, feeling much relived and wishing I’d thought of that. We walked
to the sink where uncustomarily I leaned on the counter, while Beth took care of the
breakfast’s residue.
---“Do religious folks like me in a state of transition have more severe longings than
others?”
---“I don’t have an answer for you. If the research has been done, I’m not aware of it. As
I said religions evolved out of a sense of longing to know. I think it was a historian
named Will Durant, who wrote a multi-volume history of the western world that never
got beyond the eighteenth century but was also an agnostic, who said that steeples were
built to try to satisfy people's longing to know and as long as the questions remained so
too would the steeples.”
---“I'm not unfamiliar with the idea, but I have no knowledge of the Durant person.”
---“That all right. Not many people do today either. He was required reading when I was
an undergraduate, but I would guess that most undergraduates today have never heard of
him. The comment is perceptive because despite our highly-evolved selves we can be
overwhelmed by lacking what we want. Invention of religion was one way in which
individuals and societies tried to curb the fear of not knowing, and even today religion
serves as a means by which people can try to come to terms with the mystery of life and
existence. What may separate religious longing from other forms may be the insistence
on faith. No matter what I say while you’re lying on my couch or sitting upright in my
chair or working at my sink . . . thank you, by the way . . . your faith may prove to be so
strong that it cannot be dislodged or replaced. That remains a possibility in spite of all
that's transpired and all the questioning you've put yourself through.”
I did not expect an interruption. Not her style, I'd discovered, and yet it occurred with a
firmness I could not miss.
---“I don't think so.”
My thought immediately without speaking was a big shift already underway.
While Beth quietly wiped the counter I poured myself another cup of Peet's and opened
the cookie jar to retrieve two more Oreos. She chuckled when I place one on her hand.
---“It never ends, does it?” she intoned.
--“Nor will this discussion of longing, I'm afraid.
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---“I've always thought of the brain as more fixed than you've described. My upbringing
I suppose. Indoctrinated with anti-Darwinian views, so much of who we are and we
should live is fixed, if you know what I mean."
---“I do understand. Malleability and religion can easily come into conflict. The truth is .
. . the brain with billions of cells, behaving this way and that, can easily fool us . . . it is a
trickster.”
---“A good trickster, I hope?”
---“I'm afraid the brain is amoral.”
---“I’m not familiar with brain chemistry nor genome science, but I'm get the drift. I
should be more familiar because my Father was trained as a chemist, but, when he lost
his lab job, he also turned against science. I don’t think that science had anything to do
with what happened to him. For him, though, it had everything to do with what
happened.”
---“Understood. You do not appear to be very hostile?”
---“I surprise myself how unhostile I am toward what I was taught to be hostile toward.
It's almost as if you tell me it's bad, I want to know more. I didn't always think that way,
but, as people pound on my recent behavior, I've started thinking that way more and
more. Another part of my misbehavior is that I want to take up some things that have
been left out of my religion-dominated life. In time, though, because I have enough on
my plate for now.”
She placed a hand on my arm before she said,
---“I’m becoming a part of a world in which I’m having to learn its ways. Forgive me if I
have to ask lots of questions. I’ve often been told in the past not to ask questions, and
now that I'm free to do so, I may be overloading. I feel that it’s okay to be bolder, and
okay to make mistakes.”
---“Welcome! Be bold, be assertive, be curious, listen to your inner voice. Given the
conversations we’ve had since we met at Gino’s table, I doubt if we can keep many
secrets from each other. It seems almost like a natural course to talk about our lives, not
just yours but ours.”XXV
We walked into the Great Room and sat in front of the glass door. Sitting next to her was
easier for me than standing close to her.
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---“Your dream about longing has launched an extended conversation, your second day
in captivity.”
---“Not like conversations I’ve had for most of my life. I started talking to you at Gino’s
table without ever intending to, and I just kept talking at the autumnal fest and now in
your prison with a sliding glass door instead of bars. I should apologize. That’s what I’m
used to doing . . . apologizing when I said more than I'm expected to. I apologize and
keep talking. So, here we are. You're poking around in my private life, and to be Godfearing honest, i want to poke around in your private life. It feels funny saying that, but
poking is not entirely new to me. Before, though,mi had to be sneaky.”
Her blue eyes were lit up, and the curl in her lip was more seductive than I wished for.
Most refreshing counseling non-counseling I've ever done.
---“Let’s balance the scales. I’ve learned a lot about your private life. I think my
intentions were honorable. Friend were worried about you, and you were worried about
yourself. I’ve no objection to your poking around in my life because i sense you have no
objection about the reverse. This would not happen, if we were in couch-mode unless I
had ulterior motives. I don't. And, believe it or not, given the notority of some highprofile therapists and psychiatrists, my record is clean. I haven't misused my couches;
I’ve hidden them.”
---“And . . . No, I can't say that. I'm a guest.”
I laughed because I knew it had to be gotten out sooner rather than later.
---“And C?”
---“You're not angry?”
---“Of course not. You know about C and me, and, tit-for-tat, I know about your
conversations with C. I love C, and she loves me, and we 're working through, as you
know, a new twisting in this long friendship that did not become a relationship until
years after I counseled her and before her, her mom. Actually, I was never her therapist. I
was asked for my opinion. She came through her own crisis with the help of a local
therapist, a it-rate psychiatrist.”
Beth looked at her hands folded on her lap in front of her, hands folded for prayer,
except I knew better.
---“In case you're interested . . . that's what C told me. We religious types like to catch
people in lies. Maybe later." the sense of humor I was discovering was delicious.
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---“I fully intend to grant you every opportunity. Not today.”
---“Couches aside,” I continued, as I heard an affectionate snicker. “You know I’ve been
divorced for a long time. You also know I’ve had my romantic ups and downs. And I’m
sure you know – I would not have said this last night or last week – you know the ups
and downs are very current. Romantic losses launch their own longings. Indeed, most of
the troubled longers on psychiatrists' couches are there to recover from lost love. Love
loss should probably be more carefully defined, but you understand my general point.”
---“I do.”
---“You may have felt some loss with second man you told me about, but you probably
felt nothing with the first.”
---“Correct, although the loss for the second was hardly profound.”
---“Almost self-evident. The loss that ignited your longing is of a different magnitude.
No less important, just different, except loss that leads to longing may light up the same
part of the brain and activate the same set of neurotransmitters. The brain may not care if
we're talking about a lover or a code.
---“As I said earlier, my abandonment of religion had little residual spillover. I can't say
the same about my romantic ventures. I've been slapped round hard at times, even with
my evil twin ex . . . .”
---“Evil twin!”
---“I see that C did not spill all the beans. Understandable. It's like a never-ending soap.”
I waited until Beth's laughter had subsided and she had pulled hands away from her
mouth.
---“Blister, the man who committed suicide and whose funeral I've just returned from . . .
Blister and I married twin sisters. That how I came to know him and his family o well. It
was tumultuous for both of us, worse for him tan me. Once I was divorced and liberated,
I knew I would date but I was far less certain about another marriage. It has turned out
that way. I have dated and not remarried.”
---“At this moment . . . .”
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---“Some new wrinkles and opportunities, but . . . no . . . the equation has not yet been
reworked.”
---“C said Natalia was gorgeous and savvy.”
---“Bless my soulmate, if I may. She makes the conversation so much easier.”
Still laughing, Beth never missed a step.
---“She'll be delighted to hear that . . . .”
---“Natalia happened while I was on a mercy mission with my deceased friend’s sibs.
We spent an evening together . . . no sex . . . and in the days that followed we texted,
emailed and phoned.”
---“And she showed up?” Beth injected with a tantalizing voice.
---“And, she showed up. She’s a powerhouse of a lady, but it ended almost as quickly as
it began. We both figured out why it ended, and I did not hear from her after her
departure. In the meantime . . . well, you know what happened at and since the autumn
festival.
---“What you may no know is that during my trip to the City for the funeral I saw both
women. I did not know either was in the City.”
---“You may be relieved to know neither did I. C’s been traveling and my contact with
her by cell has concerned other matters. How do you feel about this? Am I allowed to
ask the Dr the Dr’s question?”
---“Ha-Ha. I like that. Yes, you’re permitted. An Everyman’s dream, right? Two
marvelous women . . . and yet, Natalia and I parted friends, and C and I remain soul
mates.”
---“I'm glad I don't have to take sides.”
---“I wouldn't count on that.”
---“I have my couch ready. Are you up to telling the rest, which I may actually be
slightly privy to.”
---“Nothing with C is ever 'slightly' – not a word in her vocabulary. There's a third
component. Do you want to take a shot?”
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Beth averted her eyes, dropped her head and finally noodled in the affirmative. Then, I
heard what I had surmised she already knew.
---“Sarah. Natalia knows Sarah.”
---“Thanks to C, I can by pass all introductions and explanations . . . .
---“In truth, that's all there is to know. Sarah is one of those lost loves that left me
longing but slowly got tucked away in a good place. It can happen. For your benefit. Not
about romance in your case but other things.”
---“Do you know what you want? Does C know what she wants? You're both so much
more experienced than I am, but, even so, do we ever figure out once and for all what
we want? I know wanting is hard to pin down. Will it surprise you, if I tell you I didn’t
want more of the Baron but I wanted more of what I’d been taught to suppress. For
weeks this conflict drove me nearly crazy. I couldn’t talk about it, and worse I couldn’t
erase it.”
---“And now?” I asked to take a detour around the C question.
---“You have to know that I’ve talked to C about my feelings, and now I’m talking to
you, probably in more detail than I ever shared with C. On one level I’m jealous of C’s
life . . . jealous in the sense that, as I said before, I’ve missed so much . . . but on another
level I’m intimidated by her life.
---“Most startling to me is how free and easy you and C talk about these things. I can’t
ever imagine talking about life’s most private . . . and yet, here I am, listening . . . no
eating it up . . . and talking about my mine. Is this what captives do when thrown
together, as we’ve been?”
I could only laugh out loud at her observation.
---“Captives in Babylon, are we?”
---“And what do you know about captivity in Babylon,” Beth said in a snarky tone, as
she sat up straight in her chair.
---“Let’s see. What do I remember? Need I be careful in the presence of someone who
has actually read the Bible? First, slavery in Egypt and, then, captivity in Babylon
because they continued to practice idolatry and to anger Yahweh. They must have
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thought about their lives, talked among themselves, raised questions and sought answers,
indeed, wasn’t that the period when the Torah became more central in their lives. I quit.”
---“So do I. I’m in over my head, and you may be too. Yahweh is not my God who is
loving and forgiving. What am I saying? Is not my God also Yahweh? We use that term.
Did God get transformed somehow that I missed or was never told?”
---“Complicated. Some Jewish scholars and writers think that Christianity hijacked
Yahweh and turned him into a different Deity to fit with the New Testament version, and
that the New Testament God cannot be linked with the Old Testament Yahweh. Let’s
leave it to the theologians. Whatever they did in captivity, I suspect ours – short-term as
Dominique thinks it will be – will be more comfortable and fruitful.”
---“Do all conversations start with sex and end up with God?”
---“Many do, no doubt, but not what I expected with us. Even psychiatrists who are
supposed to be in the know can be surprised.”
---“Surprise! Surprise! Not often with Mom and Dad but with sibs and friends often.”
---“You talked about sex out of interest but as a taboo?”
---“More or less. I dare say all of us longed – there’s that word again – to know and to
experience, except for the very pious or devout. But, only a few took the risk, usually
with unfortunate consequences.”
---“Do other people’s consequences weigh on your mind?”
---“Yes and no. The more you and I and C and I talk, the more I’m aware of something I
wasn’t before. My experience with the Baron might well have been repeated with my
later boyfriend, but it wasn’t for two reason. We were committing our lives to founding
new churches. It was my penance after what had happened between me and the Baron.
The second reason – if I were going to have sex again outside of marriage, I would not
have it with him, even as I vacillated between penance and desire. You can see what a
mess I’d created for myself.”
---“It can feel messy, but it may also have been a part of the unlocking of your life from
the religious world. I’m not urging you to renounce the code you’ve lived by and
become a wastrel, but you’re already coming to terms with a change that entails a
different logic from what you’ve known. I’m not sure knowing about our messy sex
lives represents the best model. It may serve to shed some light on what you can expect.
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Besides, I can observe you’re interested. You’ll probably get bored after-while. I think
we can count on that.
---“And, if you expect any food for the rest of the day, I need to go to the Small Mall.
How do you feel about venturing out?”
---“Let’s take a chance. I agree that Gordon and others must know that the risk of any
kidnapping plan has multiplied significantly. If I stay here, I may get bored out of my
mind without the salacious – is that the right word – lives of my new acquaintances.”
---“Right word, unfortunately. On the way out, I can introduce you to Dominique, and
perhaps he'll have more information.”
Beth pulled me out of my chair and threw her arms around me.
---“Thanks for being so patient. You’re a good protector, D-Man!”
I did not feel like the protector as much as I felt I wanted to be the D-Man. I was ready
to end this discussion and test the out-of-doors.
We gathered up my red cart and headed out. Dominique was at his post. I introduced
him to Beth, and in a manner that was so flirtatious and so protective at the same time,
he welcomed her, said she shouldn’t worry for her safety while in the building and had a
few more things since I’d talked to him.
His information was that police had issued notice that they did not intend to open a
formal inquiry, but all the parties were expected to follow the law and any deviation
would relaunch the investigation. Dominique was certain that would put an end to any
threats and plans unless there were rogue elements out there. His advice was for Beth to
be always in the presence of someone else and to keep tabs on the people around her for
the immediate future. We agreed, thanked Dominique and left for the Small Mall. I
could see that Beth was in thought, and I assumed she was mulling over Dominique's
report. It would take time. She had to feel that the danger was past in her own way, not
because someone had told her so.
The Small Mall was quieter than usual, and I did not see the usual faces. I noticed a sign
on the Community Bulletin Board that Tera was playing that night at a local
pizzeria/bistro, and I suggested to Beth that we might want to take that in. She said by
all means, and so our purchases were fewer than I had expected.
In the afternoon after a light lunch, while Beth busied herself in her room, I took care of
emails and other messages. I wrote Lizzie, apologizing for my belated answer and
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saying I was a bit up against it. I didn’t want to turn her down flatly, although I had been
slowly walling myself off from the clinic and the university. I had no idea yet what was
entailed, and I agreed to help out so long as it didn’t stretch into a long series of
meetings and reviews. Knowing her as well as I did, I assumed she had already figured
out she had me on the hook for one meeting, and that was it.
Finishing up my emails I sat and thought about my several conversations with Beth. The
last thing I’d expected at this stage in my life was to be addressing or readdressing the
old religious chestnuts I’d long ago abandoned. Times had changed, but the message had
not. Religion was another human invention that was as screwed up as most human
institutions. If it was invented by a supreme being, he or she must be hiding in disbelief
as to what can happened to well-laid plans of even the deities themselves. I remember
seeing Archibald MacLeish's JB when I was in college and was going through my own
disengagement with God and feeling amazement when I heard the lines something like,
Man can screw up his life just as he can mess up his lines and scenes, he's nothing but a
ham. Was God also a ham? I had yet to figure out exactly where Beth was in her own
quest – it was not yet a total disengagement, but might well become one. And, when and
if it entered its full-blown stage, what then?
I flipped open my laptop and decided to play around with some ideas for the fictional
piece I was working on. I was still jotting down notes and ideas and not yet composing
much of a narrative. I thought to myself I should consider introducing a religious
element because that was something that sprung from my own experience and yet could
be expanded much beyond what my own experience had been. I had an ample number of
characters to write about and stories to surround them with, but I was still searching for
the key. I was finding that what I once thought – that the plot would somehow take care
of itself and evolve out of the thoughts and actions I ascribed to the characters – that
wasn’t really happening. I was a novice, but I was finding it refreshing, probably
because I didn’t have to make a living from it.
I heard Beth open her door and enter the Great Room. I suddenly realized that while it
was not yet dark the daylight was fading fast, a little bit sooner every day.
---“Hi, I'm afraid I was lost in thought and had lost track of time.”
---“That's all right, I fell asleep. I had a dream I have to tell you about . . . .”
---“You’re a natural Jungian . . . and I’ll explain that if you want me too . . . .”
---“I'm afraid you'll have to,” she said quizzically.
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---“Carl Jung ranked with Sigmund Freud as one of the founders of modern
psychoanalysis – what we psychiatrists study. Both thought dreaming was important, but
Jung pushed dream analysis much further than Freud because he thought it was a
window into the subconscious. Jungians are famous for asking in the morning, ‘Did you
dream?’ They love to delve into each other's dreams. Dreams are not the bread and
butter of our psychoanalytic protocols, but they remain important to a branch of
psychiatry and psychoanalysis.”
---“Have you analyzed people's dreams?”
---“I have, but more often than not dreams seem to be fairly ordinary – as if the mind or
the conscience was cleaning up for the day. I also keep track of my dreams, although as
I've gotten older I've found it harder and harder to remember the damn details. But, I still
record them when I can remember them.”
After sitting down, she asked “Should I be worried that I have what seem like powerful
dreams, not always scary but of weight, if you know what I mean. When I wake up, I
know I've been dreaming, even though I too have trouble remembering the details.”
---“In general, no, but the no should be qualified. I don’t always take my dreams
seriously, and I would say the same to you. Although there are many theories and
interpretations about dreams, how and why they form is an unsolved riddle. The contents
of our dreams have to be interpreted, and we use the frontal cortex” – I pressed my
finger against that part of her head above her forehead where the frontal cortex resided –
“to piece together the bits and pieces that make up the contents of our dreams. That is
the same part of the brain that we use for logical thinking. Sadly, the contents of our
dreams may be so ragged and incomprehensible there’s no logic to explain them. The
dreams may fade or, if they are strikingly impressive, we may make stuff up to try to
understand. Dream analysis takes a long time to be effective because so much time is
spent trying to deal with noise.
---“On top of that we have all these images and symbols stored away in our brain – stuff
we’ve collected from our experiences, whatever . . . religious, cultural, historical or
literary . . . and we may call them into play as our brain tries to interpret our dreams. I
used to have on my shelves books on dream interpretations, representing different
traditions, and analyses of similar contents could have different interpretations. Any
specifics you want to talk about?”
---“Yes, because after all that's happened the last few weeks, this dream had me walking
through a green pasture, more like a rolling hill but very lush into a building with very
large and colorful rooms. I actually felt relieved, as I left the open field and entered the
big building. That surprises me now that I think of it. The last thing I remembered was a
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sense of happiness as I walked through the rooms. But, there were also figures, other
people, in the shadows, yet no one was close to me. When I woke up, I thought I was
smiling, now I'm not sure. Should I be worried?”
---“It may not surprise you if I said that the serious dream analysts try to connect their
interpretations to more than one dream. It takes a while to build up an inventory of
images, symbols, actions, scenes before they’re confident in offering an analysis. Dream
analysis is also directed by the need to know more than what you just relayed, so the
conversation you would have with your analyst would be designed to look at each detail
of the episode, not just to explain that detail but to try to jar loose more of the dream
itself.
---“In broad terms, your dream may be search for order at a time when some jarring
things have happened. That probably doesn’t strike you as terribly profound. Order and
disorder in our lives probably influence much of our dreaming. In some dream theory
disorder is associated with being out-of-doors where boundaries are less defined like the
open field, even though that field is deceptively lush. Order, however, is associated with
the inside – rooms with walls and hallways connecting where you can go and not go.
The shadows may represent more disorder you’re trying to escape. Space is both defined
and not defined, and you may be wishing, hoping, desiring to move from disorder to
order.
---"But, the thought just occurred to me that the reason you feel you were smiling in the
dream and, perhaps, when you awoke was because the order in your life that was rent –
a religious term, I believe – is reemerging again in small bits. A possibility, that's all.
---“I often dream about moving from inside to outside, back inside. In one dream I
remember not wanting to leave an indoor basketball game for an outside baseball game,
even though I never watch basketball and only watch baseball. I still don’t know what
the interpretation should be, and while I've had other inside-outside dreams that
particular dream has never recurred. Not all would agree with this. Freudians, for
example, might interpret it as your inability to feel liberated in the open space. My guess
is that some things are being tested and pushed toward resolution but beyond that I'm
reluctant to go.”
---“Since everyone dreams, we Christians, and you pagans,” she said with emphasis, “is
there a school of Christian dream analysis?”
---“There is and, in fact, there are several different Christian schools, as there are several
different secular or pagan, as you prefer, schools. As you can imagine in Christian dream
interpretation important but common religious symbol influence how dreams are
interpreted. Since these symbols can show up in the dream world, they will be treated as
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those practitioners use or explain the symbols in their worship or theology. That's about
as far as I should go. You might want to start recording your dreams in case you decide
to enter therapy.”
---“I used to ask my parents about dreams – I've always had active dreams and
sometimes I wrote them in my diary without knowing what they meant – but my parent
pooh-poohed them. In church, when conversations turned to dreams, the interpretations
were always something about an exterior will at work, not always in a bad sense but
always in an intrusive sense. It was best not to pay attention or try to remember – forget
them.”
---“Lots of people want dreams to be about the positive, and if they’re not, they’re
nightmares and if they’re nightmares, they are to be suppressed. I honestly think there is
a limit to the value of dream analysis, but at the same time I don’t think dreams should
be ignored. They can be another tool in the therapist's and analyst's toolbox. When I was
trying to decide if I would proceed with a divorce, I had a very vivid dream that actually
made me decide to file papers the next day. Briefly, I went looking for my then-wife,
climbed a fence, swam a stream, so on and so forth until I found her at which point she
turned, smiled, although sneered might be closer to the truth, and spit on me. That settled
it.”
---“Wow, I guess so!”XXVI
After a stop at Dominique's door to see if he had any further news, which he didn’t, and
to tell him where we were going, we walked a block to Hermann's, a much beloved
neighborhood night spot. Mr. H was at the podium by the door, and after we exchanged
greetings, I introduced Beth. He was effusive as usual and said one of my favorite tables
was open, even though we could see the place was filling up fast. He spoke to one of the
bussers to prepare the table, and we moved out of the way, until we were signaled that
the table was ready. I could see Tera and the band setting up. This was not the band that
played at the farm, but a band whose lead singer and instrumentalist was a bit of a local
legend. Tera would be playing bass tonight I could see, and that in itself was an honor.
The leader was particular about who played the rhythm instrument.
---“Is there anyone you don’t know?” I heard in a slightly sardonic voice.
---“They've all been patients,” I answered in an equally sardonic tone. "The straight
scoop is that Mr. H has been here about as long I have been. Nothing special about this
place except he runs it perfectly.”
I could see by Beth's expression that she appreciated that comment.
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---“He serves good food, no special cuisine, his drinks are the most reasonably-priced,
properly-made in town and he hires good musicians and good waitstaff, not serveurs
here. He seemingly runs a business the way everyone should but doesn’t. He refuses to
charge a 300-percent-profit on a bottle of wine. I've been coming here on evenings, as
have my friends, forever. In fact, several former colleagues are seated by the far wall. I
wouldn’t be surprised if Tera's folks and sibs don’t show up eventually.”
On the way to the table I nodded or waved to persons I knew, and once seated I
explained to Beth who they were. I suggested that we both look around, as Dominique
had advised, to see if anyone provoked suspicion. No one did, so we turned our attention
to the menu, which I had almost memorized but was new to Beth.
I explained to Beth that if she did not drink alcohol, she could choose from a column of
special drinks for non-alcoholics.
---“Are all drinker alcoholics?” she asked without lifting her eyes.
---“Indeed, all of us, everyone of us, although no ever admits to it. Will you be offended,
if I say it’s sort of ‘our religion’?”
---“Yes, but point well taken,” she said lifting her eyes and showing her grin.
She said she didn’t think that she should yet venture into alcoholism, and she ordered a
fruit drink. I ordered a glass of house Chianti after asking her permission to which she
answered,
---“Not granted, but what can I do . . . you are the D-Man.”
---“What do you recommend?” she asked, as we returned to the menu.
---“I'm always leery about recommending because I have a wayward palette. Sometimes
I'm in the mood for junk food and sometimes the odd and unusual. The latter is limited
here, but there are a few such items. What is your mood after a hectic twenty-four hours
or so?”
We talked about the menu and eventually agreed upon a beef dish for her and a chicken
for me. The conversation was light and without much direction. We were both ready for
some less probing chatter. We talked about music and dance: she had studied dance for
some years and may return to it. I described how I had learned to square and round
dance at an early age, having a granddaddy who was a fiddler and played grange suppers
and dances once or twice s month, but how I failed miserably at trying to learn some
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basic modern dance that my long-ago friend, Amy, had talked me into signing up for. We
talked about the music being played from the stage, more rock than jazz. Neither of us
knew many of the songs. It was certainly toe-tapping and not outrageously loud. We
ordered a dessert to share, and before the dessert arrived, Tera did during the band break.
I stood, gave her a hug and before I knew it the waiter came up with a chair. She greeted
Beth with a hug.
---“Your base playing is impressive,” I said without venturing into music I barely
understand.
---“Nice try,” was her retort as she slapped me on the shoulder – what I would expect her
mother to do under similar circumstances.
---“This is hard compared to what I normally do. Jere takes off in so many different
directions I can’t lose track for a moment. I'm glad you came, though. You've never
heard me do bass in public.”
---“I don’t think so. Will you be doing any solo singing tonight?”
---“Not tonight. We all sing in background, but these are mainly Jere's songs, and they’re
his to sing.” She turned to Beth and asked, “Do you recognize any of the music?”
---“I'm afraid not. I'm even further behind because I don’t even know who Jere is.
Actually, I like the sound. I'm probably more comfortable with this than jazz. There is
Christian rock but I'm not sure there's any Christian jazz.”
---“If I had my druthers, I’d play jazz plus some tin-pan alley all the time. But, I actually
grew up with rock, and I do it because it's demanding.” Just then the waiter brought her
a Coke.
---“So how are things going over at the big U?” I asked.
---“I can say this since you’re gone,” she said with wry smile. "It hasn't gotten any more
demanding since I last talked to you. All those college-prep courses prepared me well.
I'm sure it will get harder, but for the moment I have time for studying and playing. I'm
not sure my parents would like to hear that, but not living at home has its benefits.”
I watched the expression on Beth's face. She, the home-schooled and family-employed,
was intently paying attention to this.
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---“It will get harder, I can assure you. I suspect you'll manage your studies and still
perform. I’d hate to think classwork would cause you to give it up. In med school the
best-adjusted students were those with outside interests. From time to time we'd invite
students to a Friday or Saturday night open mike, and while I couldn’t order my faculty
to attend, to give up one their dull cocktail parties, I glared a lot when they said they
hadn’t attended. And, when they came, they discovered things about their students they'd
never learn in the classroom or the lab.”
---“You know I attended some of those with Mom and Dad. We always had fun, and,
man, the talent was unbelievable. Did their applications have that information?”
---“In many cases, yes, and when the final admit meeting was convened, I made sure we
got a fair share of ‘other talents’ along with straight-A academic records.”
---“You can tell, Beth, this guy was not the ‘let it happen’ type of dean. He made things
happen, much to the dismay of many of his faculty.”
---“Never your parents, of course, in your presence,” joked Beth to keep the
conversation going.
---“Oh, believe me, there were times when he had to beg admittance to family affairs
because my parents were ticked off. You know, Beth, just between you and me,” as Tera
leaned over the table to whisper in Beth’s ear in a voice loud enough that I could hear,
“On the surface he pretends not to be cantankerous, but underneath . . . WATCH OUT!”
With Beth laughing wildly, Tera threw her arms around me and planted a kiss on my
cheek.
---“If you weren’t taken, D-Man, I’d be standing on your porch, knocking at your door,”
in a voice that embraced more than our table. My reddening face was clearly visible to
everyone, including the people standing at the dais.
---“OK, time's up. Enough said. Mom and Dad will be here for the second half, but you
may miss them.”
---“We probably will. Tell them we were here for the first half.” Hugs all the way
around, and she was gone.
---“Another porch romance in the making,” said Beth without missing a beat.
---“And, I don’t even own a porch . . . .”
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I paid the bill, we bid Mr H adieu and returned to the condo without incident.
Beth thanked me for the evening, and, as we collapsed on the sofa instead of the wing
backs, Beth said that tomorrow she had to begin to think about the future. We talked
briefly about how to proceed, and then both of us feeling a tiredness that came out of the
last few days called it quits.XXVII
The next morning dawned bright and sunny, one of those morning because of the angle
of the sun the rooms was flooded with light. I thought I smelled coffee, and when I
walked into the kitchen, Beth was sitting at the bistro table with coffee and toast.
---“I hope you don’t mind, I tend to wake up early, habit I guess, grass to mow, walks to
shovel. The coffee's only a few minutes old, so help yourself.”
---“I don’t know many people who use French presses, but you appear at ease with
them.”
---“I own one – even religious folks like good coffee – nothing in the Bible against it,”
she said, as if to emphasize that WE both had a lot to learn about each other’s world.
---“Nor for it, as far as I can remember,” I said, while pouring my own cup. On my way
to the table I tasted it and concluded she was no novice.
---“You’re hired. How did you manage to do this without waking me? I didn’t hear a
grinder, although, come to think of it, I was starting a Harley . . . .”
---“A Hog? Hardly, not in the kitchen, although your grinder could be mistaken for one.
Some past joy-time you’re trying to suppress?”
I had to laugh.
---“I need a new grinder, you’re right. But not a Harley. One of Sarah's few failures. The
Harley was a joy-life I failed to execute on. No chicks, no midnight, moon-lit rides
across the desert into the ocean because I never learned how to drive the damn thing. I
virtually gave it away since no one wanted to buy it. I was scared out of mind on that
machine – indeed I was.”
---“I rode on the back of one once and felt the same way, although being a Christian I
could count on you-know-whom,” she added, showing her trademark smirk, lips pursed
and eyebrows arched.
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Just then her cell went off.
She looked at the screen, excused herself and walked into the bedroom. I was left to
ponder how this quiet but personable woman was unfolding before my eyes. Just then I
heard my cell, which I had left in the Great Room. I saw Cici’s name on the screen so I
answered it.
In a deep bass – as deep as I could make it – I said,
---“Waking an old man is dangerous – would you like to try later,” at which point I
heard,
---“I know how dangerous you are in the morning, Ace – I’ll take my chances.”
---“What's up,” I asked, while chuckling.
---“Everything OK – no snatching?”
I described what had happened, and before I could finish C broke in with,
---“I pretty much know all this since I talked to her before you got up. I called to give
you some advance notice that we talked about a reconciliation meeting with her parents
and it may involve you . . . .”
Silence on both ends.
---“If she's on the phone now, I expect she’s talking to her parents. I just want you to
know that it was her idea, but, after I thought about it, I decided it made sense. She
recognizes that you are a friend, not a professional, but she thinks that if any
professionals are involved in a professional capacity, no talking will start. I know you
well enough that you'll take her request seriously, even if you don’t want to do it.”
---“A bit more post-coffee than I expected. Let me hear the request from her. But, thanks
for the heads-up.”
---“One more thing – Lizzie has an opening for a lab clerk if Beth is interested. I'm
assuming mowing or shoveling is not on her immediate agenda.”
---“That sounds interesting. She said last night she wanted to start a job hunt so . . .
you’re right . . . neither is on the table now. By the way, where are you?”
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---“You'll know soon enough, be patient, which is not one of your virtue and worse than
your vices. And, don’t fret, which you are also prone to do, I’ll be in touch. Don't be
surprised if it come by way of a third party. Ha-Ha." Not unexpectedly, she hung up
without signing off.
I poured myself another cup of coffee and sat by the sliding glass door. Exiting my
profession was proving difficult.
When Beth joined me, I could see more tension in her stride and less jollity in her
demeanor. Holding her coffee in both hands, she dropped into the second chair.
---“Is this what striking out on your own is all about – dealing with other people's
worries, fears and fantasies? I've had questions put to me that I never thought of and
have no interest in thinking about.”
---“Do you want the blunt answer or the bearable one?”
---“Neither, I know them both. So here’s the story – and I know you like stories – I’ll try
to give it a beginning, middle and ending.”
---“I also like subplots . . . .”
---“You'll have to make up your own. The basic plot is almost more than I can deal with.
My family, at least my parents, are coming around. I haven’t told them everything and
don’t want to, but what they know has made them very upset with the perpetrators. Have
I got the right word? Anyway, they wanted me to come home and have a voluntary
intervention with the family. I know about these games and said no. We tossed other
ideas around, and then I said I’d meet them on neutral territory but not for the purposes
of an intervention. I’d made up my mind on that score. As often as I feel at loose ends,
I’m gradually growing comfortable with my decision. I don’t think any longer it’s the
wrong decision nor the final decision.”
---“Let me ask you to describe the decision you’ve reached. I’m not playing games. I
probably know, and you know I probably know, but I want to hear how you put that
decision.”
---“How I feel is that I’ve broken away from the structure and code I’ve known for so
long because I’m dissatisfied, I’m full of doubts and I’m ready to explore other
lifestyles, if that’s the word. My decision to step away is not irreversible. I can never
fully embrace the life I’ve stepped away from, but I can envision a modified version if I
decide to do that. At this moment, if I were to address this question with my parents, I’d
have to say it is my desire to continue to explore and not to return.”
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---“Fair enough. None of what you said surprises me, but I wanted to hear you say it."
---“When your name came up, my Dad asked – you know how fathers are – what our
relationship was. I knew what he was driving at. I explained who you were – again but
in more detail – and said you were offering shelter and assistance, nothing else, and that
as soon as I could get the next phase of my life organized I expected to be on my own –
in fact, that's what I want.
---“He then asked if this was your idea for a meeting on neutral ground? I said it wasn’t
and I hadn’t yet asked if you would participate. I could sense from their reactions that
they were both relieved and worried. If they could be assured I was acting on my own
and not under an evil spell cast by you, they could know some relief; but, if I had taken
my life into my own hands more than they were prepared for, they were filled with
worry.”
Looking down at her feet or the floor or into that lower space we all find comfort in, she
added:
---“I wanted them to meet you and talk with us about what is so alien in our religious
lives – how experiences change lives – but I was afraid to ask. Not surprisingly, my
Mother was asking me, if it were possible. I have my excuse to ask.” She turned her
head toward me in anticipation of an answer that she knew was coming. She did not
show any concern because I took a few seconds to answer.
---“It could be an awkward situation, but it can be managed so as not to be. You know
I'm happy to do what I can, but I must try to stay your friend and not become your
therapist. Because we’re entrapped for the time being, it’s difficult to defend the line
between the two roles. As we’re discovering, friends can have valuable conversations
about how they have navigated their lives without establishing a therapist-client
relationship. It can be tricky when one of them is a therapist, and has professional
opinions and views on matters that are being discussed in couchless sessions between
two friends. I’m aware of this, and I think you’re becoming aware of it. In the course of
our long conversations, I’ve noted that your remarks and questions have taken on a less
prescriptive tone – not so much what should I do but what should I know. I hope we can
keep it on that level until you’ve reached that point where you’re ready to make some
choices. You may decide that you can’t make these choices alone, and at that point we
must talk about finding a professional. It’s entirely conceivable, however, that you’ll do
it on your own. In effect, I see my role in any meeting with your parents simply to state
the obvious: we know where we are, we’re not clear yet where we’re going and we can
choose to recognize the mutual differences and work within that framework to find an
accommodation or to continue to use the differences to build a wall of separation. I can’t
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advise you or them on the best course. I've listened to you, I’ll listen to them and I must
try to respond to your mutual concerns in a way that won’t make matters worse.
---“For me, you can appreciate the dilemma. I do not know them, and I will not learn
very much in one face-to-face meeting. The playing field can’t be level, can it? From the
outset because you and I are living under the same roof and having long conversations
about our lives, my sympathies are not neutral. I’m more sympathetic with what you’re
trying to do than I am with them, even though I've not yet heard their case. I can imagine
what it is, nonetheless. Therefore, Beth, I will participate so long as everyone
understands that whatever I say is not neutral therapeutic advice on how to resolve the
standoff between child and her parents but a personal assessment of where this childparent-church relationship is at the moment. It can’t be avoided that my assessment will
derive from what I, as a professional, know or understand about human behavior, but it
shouldn’t be expected that I will play the role of professional. I see my role as your
protector and friend. I am not your parents’ protector or friend. I cannot be and will not
try to be neutral. Does my yes have enough qualifiers?”
It was a hearty laugh, and then she lay her hand on my arm and said:
---“I’m learning to live in the secular world of qualifications and reservations. Not a
world I’m intimately familiar with. I accept.”
It was fairly easy to agree on a time and on some basic ground rules. By and large,
though, I thought it best to let it not become too structured so that everyone could feel
free – a friendly intervention I reminded her. She understood the irony and humor. We
also agreed on what to serve. I left it up to her to compete the arrangements and said I’d
return in an hour or so from errands I had to run. If she didn’t object, I’ll cook tonight.
She didn’t object.
As I walked to the Small Mall I found myself again trying to figure out what was
happening. It was happening in front of me and all around me, and I wasn’t sure I was in
something I hadn’t any warning about, and then I realized I’d had nearly a month of the
unexpected. True, Blister’s death had left much unresolved, but, for all intents and
purposes, my role had ended. Then, the business with Sarah and Natalia – it had gone as
far as it could, and I didn’t really want it to go any farther. In a curious way Natalia’s
revelations . . . if true and I had no reason to doubt her, as bizarre as the situation seemed
. . . they had not erased my deep affection for Sarah but had reaffirmed the
accommodation I’d reached with myself and in pectore with her. C has been in and out
of my life for a decade, always casual but with deep affection nonetheless, but now the
affection came front and center. It was no longer feeling casual. Natalia, whom she knew
before I did, made that crystal clear. And, what of Beth? Out of the blue, as it were. She
excited me, and there were reasons why she should. I felt no shame because I was
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determined, whatever my libido demanded, to keep it on the up and up. C’s admonition
– “One night and no more” – was bad advice, I knew it and she knew it as well. C’s way
of making me think straight about Beth. As I stood at the corner, waiting for the light to
change, my cell screen let up and I saw it was C calling.
---“Hey C . . . no see.”
---“That’s not funny, D-Man. You’re walking to Small Mall, and I'm waiting for you.”
---“An element of truth. That’s what happens when you absent yourself from the joyous
life I’ve put together for you. What is all this mystery? Are you the snatcher we should
be worried about all along?”
---“Ha-Ha. I think I enjoy rattling you. Here now but not later. I just drove past you, and
I'm pulling into the Small Mall. I’ll see ya there.”
C was waiting at the door. I learned that Gino was out of town, and she was managing in
his place.
---“I have a meeting upstairs shortly – new vendors – you know how careful and
thorough Gino is about vendors – but I want some time with you.”
We sat on a bench in a far corner of the central atrium. She sneaked in a kiss just as we
sat down. For a few minutes we sat with our arms around each other and her head on my
shoulder. Nothing was said until she sat upright and whispered,
---“We are expected to be model citizens. I’m assuming you’re on your best behavior
with Beth?”
---“What about your admonition? I’ve not exercised my option yet.”
---“And you won’t. That’s why you got admonished in first place. As alive as your libido
is, you’ve not yet become a self-destructing roué. With me you can self-destruct. I know
Beth’s side of the evolving story. Anything you want to add? She said you laid down
certain conditions that she thought she could abide by.”
---“Ground rules rather than conditions. To put it simply . . . .”
---“You can’t be the therapist. Understood by me and increasingly by Beth. When we
introduced you to Beth, we – Gino et moi – had no plan in mind except to allow her a
chance to talk to someone who knew what to do without screwing up her life more than
it was.”
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---“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’ve come to admire her, and, believe me, for this
old man’s libido she’s a temptation.”
---“I’m counting on the ‘old man’ part. Don’t take on more than you can handle. Beth
reported to me, while you were walking down the street.”
---“And you were violating the law by talking on your cell and driving.”
---“You betcha . . . as often as I can.”
---“I’ll listen and once I’ve heard her parents’ concerns and listened to their exchanges,
I’ll decide what I’m going to say.”
---“Your modus operandi, known well to me and my clan. Let’s hope it works with Beth
and hers.
---“Let me add something you may not know, although, as wired in as you are, I don’t
see how you couldn’t.”
She stared but held her left hook in check.
---“Last night we went to Hermann's to listen to Tera and the band she was playing with.
When Tera came to table and the conversation was about college, med-school students
who have their own open-mike, etc., and performing with our local celeb, Jere, Beth was
all ears, if you know what I mean.”
---“That’s positive. She’s getting the support she needs and the exposure that she wants.
She's in good hands. I'm as curious and amazed as you are. I would never have guessed
she could handle this as well as she has, given her background, with such aplomb.
---“And, you and I have a lot of catching up to do. I meant what I said the last time we
fucked, and I expect to say it to you over and over.”
She kissed just long enough for our tongues to intersect, and she was gone, up the flight
of stair, two steps at a time, to the next level. Whatever temptations my libido had
conjured up over Beth, and before that, Natalia, C had a way of reducing them to weak
neurons.
When I arrived home I found Beth working on her computer. She got up and helped me
unload groceries, knowing almost intuitively where things should go. I said it would
take about a half hour to get everything ready if she wanted to work, and she demurred
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saying nothing required immediate attention. She added she was looking through the
want-ads on-line, and that would take hours.
---“That many jobs in this economy?”
---“More than you might think. In this town, university and high-tech jobs continue to
show up on the list.”
---“That's probably the reason, but I'm still surprised. I have some university contacts if
you want me to help. I guess I need to know more about what you see yourself as
qualified for.”
---“Well, I can certainly do yard work – not my first choice, although the university has
such listings. I think about hospital or medical jobs only because in high school, as part
of my home-schooling, I did a tour of duty at the university hospital. I also think about
going to school, but that is so iffy and I have so many doubts that I'm not really ready.”
---“Out of curiosity, why did you choose not to go to college?”
---“Not encouraged, on the one hand, even though my parents have degrees, not
encouraged unless I wanted to do something like Moody Bible or undertake missionary
training. With my parents’ degrees, you might ask, as I often have asked myself, ‘Why?’
I concluded it entailed risks that my parents had decided dangerous. They never
explained why education should be discouraged. Not being encouraged, I just let my
opportunities slide by. Not so with my younger sibs. I was always the more dutiful child.
Now, removed from that environment, I feel some anger toward them for not being
encouraging and toward myself for being so dutiful. I also know that on my own I can
try to make up for lost time, if I want to. I know I'm not ready yet, but down the road . . .
.”
After lunch I chose to do some work, and Beth, still recovering from her night in hiding,
decided to take a nap. I invited her to join me at the gym if she was so inclined. She said
she'd like to. Her family lived not far from a club where she had worked out for a couple
of years before the current upheaval. She'd be happy to get back into it.
At the gym I introduced Beth to Claudia without explanation, and Claudia's expression
was priceless. I said we might need a thirty-day membership, and the subsequent
expression outdid priceless. Gaining her composure, Claudia asked Beth, if she would
need a trainer, and Beth answered not right now – she had her trainer, as she put her arm
around me. None of this was rehearsed. I tried not to look too smug, while Claudia tried
to follow this unscripted script.
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I pulled out my wallet to pay, and Claudia, still looking non-plussed, held up both hands
and said today was on the house. Her recovery was remarkable, although typical. She
declared she didn’t have time to begin to add up the costs of our working out together in
her gym. We all laughed. We thanked her, I threw her a kiss and we found an
unpopulated corner.
Beth had been in a gym before, not once, I could see, but with regularity. I had dated
several female gym rats, and most were devoted to aerobics rather than weights. Not
Beth. This was the first opportunity I’d had to observe her body up-close, and while I’d
seen the well-developed muscles in her upper and lower arms, I had assumed they
derived from carrying around weed wackers and such things. But, in fact, she had a
lifter's body. Nothing over-developed but still larger than most women her height – she
was at least five feet nine inches – and weight. We spotted each other, and she kept the
lifter's banter going. After an hour we both lay on our respective benches to rest a few
minutes.
---“No aerobics?” she queried.
---“I hate aerobics and haven’t done them for years. I'm convinced that Stair-Masters
were dropped form outer-space slowly to incapacitate the population before conquest.
How about you?”
---“I love aerobics. I feel as if I'm on a mission to advance the cause of invaders . . . .”
---“You know they treat women as slaves and concubines, and the really pretty, muscular
ones are hauled off to some distant star to wait on male lifters. Be careful what you wish
for?” At which point she took my arm and pulled me up to a sitting and then standing
position.
---“In addition . . .fantasies and naps . . . Sie sind absolut verboten . . . .”
---“Whoa, I'm being herded in German . . . .”
---“You forget my last name – I grew up listening to German at home and with my
relatives, although we were encouraged, almost mandated, to speak English. I guess
there were some scary moments for our German-speaking family. Anyway, that's the
family's story.”
---“I will dilly-dally no more – we have some cooking to do tonight.”
At the desk, Claudia in a firm tone with hands on hips warned us:
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---“You work out like a well-oiled team. What is it I don’t know and should know? Not
good to hide things from the Iron Lady.”
We gave her a brief rundown without any mention of the snatching business, and
Claudia was satisfied. After a few hands slaps and more thanks, we exited into what was
going to be a cold night. On the way home we accidentally ran into Jay and his partner. I
introduced Beth and Jay introduced David, and since we were standing in front of a
Starbucks, we decided to grab a coffee and to escape the cold.
Jay and I explained how we'd first met and how long we'd had been out of contact until
he returned to the city with his partner. I could see Beth's eyes widen with the reference
to partner. David, a doctor, and I talked briefly about the local medical community that
he was slowly becoming acquainted with.
---“You’re no longer at the med school?” he asked.
---“That's right,” I responded. “I've only been retired a short while, and it’s taken a few
months to clear my plate. So far as I know, I’m done now. One never knows, though, in
this business. I'm hoping to keep my distance. There's no worst thing than an old V-P
hanging around.”
In meantime, Jay was talking to Beth, and I could surmise what he was trying to find
out. I was sure he would be disappointed. As we parted, Jay put his arm around David,
and I winked at Beth to try to reassure her.
As we made our way to the condo, she finally spoke up hesitatingly,
---“I still have trouble around gay people. That they suffered from sickness and
waywardness was drilled into me from an early age. It's hard to shake, even though I'm
smart enough to know now there's more to the story than I was taught. I know that Gino
is gay, and for a while I thought Cici was gay because she was always with Izzy. She
laughed when I told her that.”
---“I'm sure she did. Further disillusionment. Neither C nor Izzy is ever without suitors.
Many people feel the same way you do, but gays in unions live their lives much as
heterosexuals in unions live their lives. They are loving, they are belligerent, they agree
and disagree about this and that and, it turns out, both gays and straights pledge fidelity
and, then, seek separations. Except for how they practice sex, gays are not much
different from non-gays.”
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---“I can understand that in a strictly rational sphere, but that's not the sphere I grew up
in. It evokes an emotional response. I want to try to make them healthy, as silly as that
sounds.”
---“I think the distinctions will become less important in your lifetime, and unless you
have a deep, permanent aversion, and I hope you don’t, you should simply let these
encounters, which are fairly common in this community, become part of your
experience.”XXVIII
At the condo we showered, separately, and then gathered in the kitchen to fix the
evening meal. I’d decided to try chicken breast cooked in a dill-based cream sauce with
some fresh peas, which we both unshelled, a baguette and some fresh berries for dessert.
I made myself an Old Fashioned with the muddler, and Beth asked if she could taste it,
and when she did, she shook her head in the affirmative.
---“It’s sweetish. Not what I expected with bourbon. I’ve tasted bourbon before.”
I explained that it was a concocted drink, a type of cocktail.
---“A class of cocktails entail muddling sugar and bitters before adding alcohol, and OldFashioneds, which probably date from the 1880s, belong to that class. The alcohol is
whiskey or bourbon. President Truman and his wife dank Old-Fashioneds, as did my
Truman-hating Dad and his brothers. Family and Party, I come by it naturally, I guess.
The purists argue about what a proper Old-Fashioned should be made with. I have my
preference: orange slice, maraschino cherry muddled in angostura bitters over ice, rye
whiskey and a dab of seltzer water. Sometimes I vary it, but not often. If you enjoy the
sweet slash sour taste and keep the alcohol to a minimum, you may learn to like it, and
not get too high or drunk.”
She took another sip, and I gave her a thumbs up and reminded her I could always make
a second one. I turned on the IPod speaker to some jazz. Up came Erroll Garner’s Misty,
played by Marcus Roberts.
---“Again,” she said with a pretense of disgust.
---“You remember?” I sheepishly replied.
---“It was dedicated, if I recall, to you. Do I get the full-blown Sandy story tonight?”
---“You remembered not only the song but her name. Do you really want to hear another
sad tale?”
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---“I do. Isn’t that what the song is about?”
---“It is, and the tale I have to tell is sad, and since it happened to me when I was
younger than you, it was very sad indeed.”
---“Your first love?”
---“The first one I was sure I was in love with. It ended almost as quickly as it began, but
I probably wasn’t sober for a month thereafter.”
---“A tale I must hear. After we’ve eaten, maybe. The alarm just went off.”
We ate, we talked, nothing too serious, and we stopped at one communal Old-Fashioned.
She cleared the table, made us some tea and gave me time to prepare the seating in front
of the sliding glass door.
After a few minutes – her efficiency was marvelous – she joined me in the Great Room
was a tray of cups and tea. I redialed Misty on my IMac, and the story began.
---“I’d fallen in love with Sandy after we had attended an Erroll Garner concert in the
city where he was born and where we were students. He played Misty at the start of the
concert and at the end, and we sang it all the way to the bar from the concert.”
---“And so what happened? Sandy's not the name of your ex,” she interposed.
---“Sandy was a undergraduate cheerleader at the university where I was a pre-med
student. This was before I 'd started dating my ex. Sandy and I had met accidentally, and
this was our third or fourth date. Passover was about to start, and since her family lived
in the city, she planned to attend a Seder with them and others and she invited me to join
them. A lovely evening, my first Seder, and I was welcomed by all. It was pretty obvious
I wasn’t Jewish, but what was not so obvious to her father was I was more than his
daughter's friend. We saw each other almost every day for a few minutes and on
weekends we took in a movie or a sporting event or a concert or just made out. After
about a month she asked me to escort her home because she was going to spend the rest
of the weekend with her family. When we arrived, nay, when I arrived with his daughter,
her father blew a gasket, ordered me out of the house, and forbade her ever to see me
again. And that's where it ended – well, not exactly she did invite me with her father's
permission to her wedding to Boris about seven months later – a rebound, perhaps,
although I never asked and actually never spent any time with her after the wedding, but
at the wedding we danced and she whispered in my ear 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
and I want you to wait for me . . . .' or something to that effect, but, as we all know, life
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moves on. My heart bled for weeks, but there was no waiting. The song was etched into
my musical soul.”
---“And now?”
---“I haven’t a clue . . . .That's the end of the story. It was a romance so sweet because it
was so innocent, so unreal. A fairy tale until it ended, as it had to.”
---“Did you ever go on a bender – are you surprised I know that word – with Sarah?”
---“Sarah? Come to think of it . . . never. Do I craze out over every lost love? Probably
in a minor way. I hate – too strong a word – I resist letting go. Eventually I wise up and
let go, usually without a bender. Sandy and I were so young that abandonment in each
other seemed the natural course. After weeks of drinking and smoking more than a
rational person – drinking and smoking may not be rational acts – once I’d collected my
wits, I remembered That I was headed to med school and that I’d better learn more selfcontrol.
---“Did you?”
---“Not so apparent, given all the stories you’ve had to listen to. However, Misty
survived. And I can’t listen to it without thinking about Sandy, but I've never been
moved to try to reconnect. I doubt if she’d remember. And, besides Misty is a great piece
of music that can be played for many different lost loves.
She obviously wanted to talk. I learned how her parents with some help managed to
educate all nine of them to the extent that they passed the equivalency exams required of
the home-schooled. They spent more time in Bible study than any other subject, but her
parents were careful not to violate the contract. They probably learned more math and
science than most kids because of their father’s training as a chemist. They also learned
that science could not be trusted. It attempted to explain God’s plan and work in
scientific terms, and that was impossible. The emphasis in their home school, as in their
home worship, was that this life was a temporary passage to prepare to enter the Gate of
the Lord's House.
I also learned that her parents' disenchantment with the secular world had gotten
stronger after her father had lost his job. Money was tight, and rules became stricter and
stricter, and the new family business – lawn care, although no one was a professional
landscaper – required everyone to work from an early age. To her father's credit,
everyone was paid above the minimum wage.
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In response to a question about whether she or any of her sibs might consider rejoining
the secular world, she said her younger sibs were far more restless than the older ones
and she, an elder, was the first – highly unexpected – to depart, even if temporarily. All
the sibs, even the older ones, lived within walking distance of the family home. In a
sense, she said with some insight, I thought, the proximity of everyone made it easier to
keep the walls in place.
To a question about marriage and relationships among her sibs, she answered, no
marriages but several relationships, Christian relationships. Just when I thought it was
time to try a different subject, out of fear she might become uncomfortable with too
many questions, she asked me about my upbringing. I was glad to launch into a subject I
had long been open about.
I started by saying that her family and mine probably had things in common about what
was wrong with the world, but my parents, being far less educated, at a time when
public education was more highly valued than now, never considered home-schooling.
---“I’m not sure that I’d ever heard the term until I was an adult. My parents’ schooling
was primitive by today’s standards – one-room rural, isolated schoolhouses, which they
attended until the Eighth Grade, when they were old enough officially to drop out, and
they both did. My dad went to work for his dad in the “grist mill” where wheat was
ground into flour, and my Mom moved in with her mother’s sister in a nearby town so
she could attend secretarial school. My Mom once drove me out to where the
schoolhouse she had attended still stood in utter disrepair, and even though I went to our
town’s grade school that had one teacher for every two grades, I was dumbfounded that
any education could take place in that one-room structure of eight grades and a single
teacher. The fact was, being farm kids, they were poorly educated, and no better, not
worse than most other farm kids. My parents had almost a dozen sibs between them. My
Mom and dad grew up within 10 miles of each other and attended different schools and
didn’t meet until they were adults. They and their sibs shared similar educational
backgrounds and, not surprisingly, similar world-views.
---“They were uncomfortable outside the small world that they knew and clung to for the
rest of their lives. My Mom never worked after she married and never talked about what
work she did after secretarial school. She became a housewife, joined the appropriate
clubs like Eastern Star and a local church where her wizardry in preparing church
suppers was admired by all. She attended weekly services, and occasionally adult
Sunday-School classes, which she hated because she had to participate, that is, answer
questions posed by teachers who was more highly educated and highly ranked than she
was. Her organizational skills, however, made her a favorite of the various ministers
who came and went.
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---“My dad was a different sort. He was anti-church – he would not admit to that
description but he sincerely believed that churches services were mainly hot air – and
only attended on important religious days at the behest of my mother. What may surprise
you, as it did me, was that the only book he had ever read – his reading skills were very
limited – was the Bible, which, he told me just before he died, he’d read several times. I
don’t remember ever seeing him reading the Bible, but when he showed me the wellthumbed copy, I then recalled seeing it on a shelf among all the knickknacks my Mom
collected. No books . . . Just the Bible and kick-knacks. My belief is that he had done
what he said he had done. In contrast, my mom, the church-goer, made the point that she
had not yet read the Bible through once, although she had read almost all of the New
Testament. As I said before, I’d never seen either with a Bible open on his or her lap.
---“Does it surprise you, Beth, that growing up in the home I did, I took an opposite path
. . . highly-educated, fully-secularized, only to be destined to serve as your spiritual
advisor?”
---“May I demur on the advisor role? The educational angle is more interesting to me
than the religious angle. I’ve heard so many tales about religious offspring, like you and
now me taking flight. Perhaps, you weren’t, but we were warned about it constantly at
home and in church.
---“I can't say I was ever warned. After I’d sprung, I caused dismay because of my
lifestyle, which my parents never understood. I regret that in the sense that it was not my
intention, as it isn’t yours, to hurt parents. Unfortunately, worlds collide with regrettable
results. Although my parents never understood, they quit the war because they simply
did not know what the war entailed or how it should be fought. We co-existed in a
brokered peace – differences exist . . . leave it at that.”
---“Oh, I wish . . . .”
Not said by Beth in despair but rather almost wistfully.
---“You may be surprised at the changes in our lives, even when we’re not planning
them. Our planning often goes awry, and that can cause much discomfort. In ways I
can’t explain, changes we have been thinking about can unfold without us, as it were.
---“Do you remember our first night at Gino’s table and the phrase . . . .”
---“Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Pardon my French. When I got home, I
looked it up and, for no reason, I memorized it. I’d never heard of Jean-Baptiste
Alphonse Karr. I learned that he came up with it as the French Revolution shifted from
its proclaimed ideals to a government that was familiar. Do I have it right?”
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---“Spot on. So, we fall back on it to explain what appeared to be reversions to what
existed before, although we may have assumed and at he same time disdained that was
before had been replaced with something new. Reverting became a defense.
---“Does change happen? Of course, it does. It’s happening to me and to you right now.
How it turns out is what we can’t predict. It’s not a stretch to conceive of a person who
proclaims big changes only to see him or her over time to modify his or her changes in
such a way that they appear to be like what existed before.
---“Are they the same or do they simply appear to be the same? I stepped away from the
life I was brought up in, and that code of life once shattered could never be reassembled
Their may be features of the code I now live by that reflect the code my parents lived by,
but they’re not the same. How we try to interpret our lives, our behaviors, our relations
is what gets us into trouble. We’re simply not very good at it.
---“Your life is changing, Beth, and under the circumstances it might be best to use a
combination of making some things happen and letting some happen. Does that make
any sense at this stage in our transition? I suppose in the most basic sense I simply want
to caution against trying to make too much happen. My own experience rather than my
professional training has told me repeatedly . . . has tested me repeatedly, I suppose . . .
trying to make things happen the way we want them to happen entails risk, if not danger.
Lecture done.”
It was quiet, very quiet. I felt her hand on my arm and her eyes pulling mine into her
focus before she said almost as quietly as the moment had been,
---“I want things to happen, to make things happen, I want a fairy-tale ending, I want the
opposite of Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose . . . ."
Was I creating a new Siren to lift me up and, then, throw me against the rocks? Not what
I needed. I could not quit the pull of her eyes, nor she mine.
The danger, I realized, was real and present. Her voice, her words, her eyes, her
lankiness . . . the lankiness I saw in the full for the first time in the gym . . . had ignited
that troublesome libido in both of us. All this talk about change seemed irrelevant,
misplaced, unnecessary. We both knew what was happening, and it hardly mattered who
was making it happen or where it might lead us.
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She stood, and I felt an erection in the midst of utter emotional chaos. She pulled me up,
took my head in her hands, kissed my lips, turned away and disappeared into her room. I
stood reverberating for how long I was not sure. Strangely, I felt relief.XXVIX
Several days later the meeting was to take place. I had nothing to do with the planning
except to consent to a day and time. As Beth described it to me, it sounded like an
intercession, although I was not sure who was doing the interceding. My role was to
listen and to try to allay whatever fears her parents had. I didn’t know what their fears
were exactly, although I could guess in general terms, and I didn’t know whether they
wanted their fears allayed. It should be an interesting experiment. In my clinical work I
would invite family members to participate from time to time, if the patient were ready
to meet with them, but all of this was under my direction. Here I was, an expert,
standing-by if or when needed.
I alerted Dominique who upon their arrival escorted her parents to my condo. There
were very modest embraces and then came the introductions. I showed her parents to the
sofa and offered beverages, water being the only request. Beth's father was tall, probably
six feet two or three, and her mother was also above average in height. That accounted
for Beth’s height and build. Both were square-jawed with very deep blue eyes, reserved
and on top of that uncomfortable. Beth had more of her father's physique but more of her
mother's face, softly sculptured, less severe than her father's. There was no doubt she
was their daughter.
The conversation was halting and at times aimless – how are you, your brothers and
sisters say hello, is there anything you need, etc. I would have left the room during this
except I was specifically asked not to. I could sense we were about to stumble into
“Why are you doing this” and we did. I turned to Beth who took a moment to gather her
thoughts. I had come to admire her mental agility over the past few days, and I was
curious how she would handle the obvious question. I also noticed her mother had
pulled out a Kleenex to wipe away some tears but her father sat erect, as if ready to
pounce.
---“I have thought a lot about what I am doing. I want you to know that my love and
affection for my family is no less than it ever was, but I also want you to know that I’m
rethinking what my life should be. That may put me out of step with the life I was living
and the life you expected me to live. For most of my life I believed what I was doing,
but lately I feel as if going through the motions because I was having doubts – what had
worked once was no longer working. I will be honest with you. I have not figured out
everything that was bothering me. At some point, though, I knew I had to separate
myself in order to figure out what was happening.”
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---“You know you've been taught that doubts often arise because you have shut out the
Holy Ghost and turned to other nostrums that will only make for more doubting,”
instructed her father while eying me as well as his daughter. It didn’t take long to
implicate me, but what made me laugh inwardly was the invoking of Holy Ghost and
nostrums in a room that probably had never heard such words, since I have been the one
and only occupant of this condo.
---“The Holy Ghost is part of the problem, Father, and I have to work through that, but I
can assure you the only other nostrums are my own questions and thoughts. We have
been taught throughout our lives that the Holy Ghost was a Holy Mystery to be accepted
and not to be questioned, and I find that idea quite unsatisfactory. And, the reason I find
it unsatisfactory is that so much of what happens in our lives and in the world around us
can’t be understood by the things we say we believe about the Holy Ghost, and too often
the things we believe are premised on accept and don’t ask any questions. That's
unsatisfactory to me.”
Whoa, I thought, this has reached a level I had not anticipated very quickly. I could feel
the walls vibrating.
---“You are forgetting, my Daughter, that this life is messy because it is only transitory.
Commitment and acceptance will guide us into the glory of God's Kingdom after our
time here. There is no reason to try to explain this life because it is only to test our
faith,” said her father, with an added sternness, as if he suddenly felt his own belief
system under such attack that he was unable to explain his way out of the hole he had
dug.
I thought to myself the mind of this man had pretty much closed down. Here was the
Ann Hutchinson squaring off against one of the Massachusetts Bay elders, who just
happened to be her father. He then added, “I'm troubled and disappointed. I have failed
in some way.” The symptoms, prescriptions, nostrums just kept piling up, but Beth was
having no part of his usual gig.
---“You have said that before, and I have said in response that, if any one is at fault, I am
the one. What bothers me, and I mean no disrespect, is that you don’t take this seriously
except as to how it might impinge on your personal reputation or personal redemption. I
may be at fault, but I know what is happening.”
Before her father could answer, her mother injected a note of empathy. And, after some
more back and forth her mother turned to me and said:
---“Perhaps the Doctor could offer us some guidance?”
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The look on her face – a plea – was almost the opposite of the look on her husband’s
face – a scowl. Did he realize he’d been bested in this argument and his wife knew he
had been? Before I could ask Beth, she said it would be helpful to have an outsider's
view. That was the signal I could not avoid.
I knew this moment was coming, and I had already considered some ideas I might throw
out. I’d conducted numerous sessions over the years with troubled families, although
this was different in that I knew less about Beth's parents and actually knew less about
Beth than I would if she were a client. I decided to begin with an admonition.
---“I'm not acting as anyone's therapist or physician so I will confine my remarks to a
couple of points. First, there is a legal issue involved, and that has to be dealt with before
anything else can happen. Beth is an adult and under the law is free to choose her
friends, her clubs, her interests, even if they conflict with what others like her parents
may want. She is not in any sense incapacitated that would require supervision. The first
thing that has to be agreed to is that her freedom under the law must be guaranteed. This
is not a matter of choice. I recognize that parents can be upset with a child's actions but
once that son or daughter has reached the legal age the parent cannot interfere without
risking official sanction. Nor can an institution like a church or an association that a
person can choose to join or to leave take any action that violates the individual freedom
of choice. There are exceptions in business and government, but they have no relevance
here. Let me be clear that I'm less concerned about the family, which may be upset and
even distraught over Beth's decisions, than I am about the church, which must
understand it is not exempt from the law when it comes to interfering with a member's
own decisions that may be in opposition to the church.”
I paused at this point to allow some reflection, and within seconds, somewhat to my
surprise, her father spoke:
---“I think the family is clear about its responsibility. We are sad and distraught that Beth
has chosen a course that is not harmonious with how we want her to lead her life, but we
come from a pietistic and pacific tradition and would shun coercion as a course to
follow. At first, I did not believe what was said about the church and its leadership. I'm a
former elder and long-time member. I have not been happy with the current leadership –
it has been in place about a decade and numerous objections have been raised. But, I
have a large family to care for, and I cannot devote long hours to participating in church
governance. Since Beth's departure, other matters have come to light, and, as a result, a
general meeting is scheduled for this weekend. I suspect that the current leadership will
be removed and the church will reorganized. I think I can assure you – and I have
spoken to others – the church's punitive involvement has ended.”
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---“I endorse what my husband has just said,” spoke her mother. “It is difficult enough
for the family without having the church complicate matters.”
---“I'm not familiar with all the details,” I interposed, “but I had assumed that the rogue
leadership was not characteristic of the church membership. You seem to confirm that.
At least that's my hope.”
I paused again to ask if anyone needed more anything, and Beth promptly fulfilled her
mother's request for more water.
---“The church's reaction has been troubling because it verged on illegal activities, but
the family's reaction can be said to arise out of genuine concern and dismay and
puzzlement. We all understand that the role of the family varies from household to
household. You have chosen for reasons that you regard as sound and legitimate to
create an environment that emphasizes devotion, commitment and service in behalf of a
set of principles that only a slice of this highly pluralistic society would embrace. That is
perfectly defensible so long as members of your family and household are not coerced
against their will. Age is an issue, of course. Parents' authority is recognized so long as it
does not cross certain boundaries with respect to infants and children and even
teenagers, but that authority in both a legal and psychological sense is limited for
members of the family who have reached their majority. Many parents regret the loss of
control and influence, at various stages, perhaps at all stages, in the lives of their
children. It is especially difficult when the child chooses a path that is reckless and
destructive. That is not the case with Beth. She is engaged in a conversation with herself
and the world around her about the meaning of life. We should all engage in that
conversation. Many do not. Even those who do may end up reaffirming the beliefs and
codes that they originally questioned. I do not know where Beth is in this questioning
phase nor do I know how it will turn out. What I do know and you know as well is that it
has begun and is not ready yet to be ended. Your fears and concerns are understandable,
but they should not be used to thwart what Beth feels is important to her right now – to
gain a better understanding of where she is and where she wants to go.
---“I can urge patience and tolerance, but you may decide that you’ve shown all the
patience and tolerance you can give. It seems to me your pacific tradition may provide
the very best tool you have in trying to understand what has motivated Beth to step away
from the core family beliefs. Let me say that in my conversations with Beth I have not
observed that she has stepped as far as you may perceive that she has” – I could observe
some lessening of tension with that remark – “but at the same time there should be no
mistaking that she has stepped away and may continue that journey because that is what
she feels she needs to do. Acrimony between parent and child will neither assuage your
fears nor deter her. Within the pacific tradition, I believe, to deal with conflict there is a
need to accept the existence of the conflict. That’s where we are at the moment. The
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conflict exists, and it might be useful to accept that as a starting point to try to
accommodate the differing viewpoints.
---“Forcing Beth back into a life she has every right to question is not an option. I do not
know your family at all except for what I've learned about Beth and what I've learned
from Beth, but I would be very surprised if your children and their children will not
adapt the belief system that they have grown up with to suit their own needs and
ambitions. You are raising a large family, and you better than most can see how the
dynamics within a large circle can change and challenge. My impression is that Beth's
inquiry is serious and not frivolous – not based on some rebellious attitude to escape, but
rather to satisfy her own curiosity about herself and the world she finds herself in.
Accepting this as a serious and not a frivolous quest on the part of your daughter may
serve as a point from which to build a new but different relationship.
---“Let me honest. The life she chooses may not be what you want or expect, but it may
also not be such a departure that you cannot make the necessary accommodations. The
understandings that we seek can be stated – that's not the hard part – the hard part is
committing ourselves to what the understanding entails. This is not the time to say let’s
try to make this happen or that happen; rather this is the time to think about where we
are in a process that may take some time and how genuinely we can say to each other
that perhaps we should alter our approach, even if just a bit different from how we acted
earlier. Small steps. Things may happen more quickly than you realize, but, for now, it's
best to know we're at the beginning, and the acrimony can only worsen unless we can
find a way to change from how we want to react to how we should react.”
That was what I had to say, and, as I rose form my chair, I excused myself, saying they
needed time by themselves. I went to my bedroom, closed the door and sat quietly. I was
out of practice, and I wondered, had I said it the way I should have. Even when I was in
practice, I never knew the answer to that question.
I realized that I could not hear any voices from the Great Room, and that was what I had
hoped for. I’d literally disengaged myself, and I was hoping they would disengage in
order to re-engage, even if just a little. I was not sure about the honesty and sincerity of
the parents. Perhaps, her mother was feeling more pain than her father, and, yet, despite
his blustering ways, he seemed genuinely concerned about Beth's wellbeing. The sense
of fear they had about the world at large was palpable. Beth shared some of it but was
becoming less overwhelmed by it.
I wandered back through my own memory bank. At times, I've feared the world around
me but in a different ways and for different reasons. We all have such fears. Why some
people find a way to tamp down the fears and other don’t remains the ultimate mystery. I
could have ended up in a restricted religious environment, but my parents never
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channeled my life to the degree that Beth's parents had. Even they chose different ways
to manifest their own religiousness, and, as a result, I was never instructed at home how
to be religious. I learned how to be religious outside the control of the household. My
parents were surely pleased with my religious inclinations but they played almost no
role in how I came to them. Grace was never said at the table; family devotional
readings were never on the daily or weekly calendar; prayer at bedtime, a practice I
engaged in for a while, was a matter of choice; and, most importantly, Satan and the Hell
he managed were never topics of conversation. Unlike Beth I was free to choose how I
wanted to express my religiousness. My parents were religious not because they had
thought much about being religious but because they were raised that way. I could not
recall when I stayed with my grandparents or played with my many cousins, all of whom
we raised religiously, we were ever much concerned about religion. It was practiced
with regularity only on Sunday. In a way, even though I was raised religiously, I’d made
a choice to be more religious. And when I was done with that, I made a choice not to be
religious any longer. My parents and friends were disappointed, but it never evolved
much beyond disappointment. I had less trouble escaping than Beth is having. As I
thought about escape, despite what I said to her parents, mainly to allay their fears, I was
already convinced that Beth had made an irretrievable break with his religious past.
Despite her own protestations that she was uncertain about giving up her past and
embracing a new future, she had stepped beyond the pale. Beth's parents for whatever
reason denounced and renounced a world that their daughter was beginning to find not
just fascinating but captivating. I heard more in her exchange with her parents than they
heard. Beth, despite her natural coyness, knew exactly what she was saying and why she
was saying what she did. Even if they can accept the presence of a conflict, I wondered
if they were ready for what may be ahead of them. That thought remained unfinished as
I heard a knock on the door. It was Beth to tell me her parents were ready to leave.
Her parents were generous with their gratitude. I could see very red eyes, and I kept my
departing comment brief – important to keep working because these are hard problems. I
didn’t offer my services any further, and I'm not sure my services were wanted. After
they left, I called Dominique to alert him just to be on the safe side. I don’t know exactly
why I felt the need to be on the safe side. When Beth returned some minutes later, I was
in the kitchen trying to decide on what to do about a meal.
Without a word Beth came in and sat on a bar stool. When I looked over at her, she had
buried her head in her hands. Finally, she lifted her head and said,
---“I'm OK, and it went as well as could be expected, but I fear the split is becoming
irreconcilable.”
She had finished my unfinished thought in the bedroom.
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Leaning back against the counter, I waited a few seconds before I asked the obvious
question,
---“Why have you reached that opinion?”
---“We more or less decided that we should allow a little time before we had another talk
– I think that was what we all took away from your comments. By the way,” as she
focused on me fully, “thanks – my parents came here thinking we were lovers only to
discover you really are a professional with some ideas that they should think about. That
helped, although inside the lover-thing made for smiles and kept me more relaxed than I
might have been. Anyway, it occurred to me that I had stepped away from their world
that used to be my world farther than I had realized. I realized that in sadness, as I
listened to my Father. Not surprisingly, maybe to you but not to me, they wanted a circle
of prayer. I agreed, and for the first time praying seemed tedious, endlessly tedious, even
though it was not more than a few minutes. I was expected to pray, and all I could say
was ‘Amen’ – Amen, that's what is said when the prayer is over. They said nothing and
looked unperturbed, but I can assure you that my Amen will be the discussion on the
way home.”
Zeroing in on me, she got up from the stool, walked toward me, never taking her eyes
off me, until we were face to face. I could feel the same reverberations from last night,
even though she only touched me by lifting her arms and placing her hands on my
shoulders.
---“I owe you. It’s not so much what you said, although what you said was perfect. No,
what I owe you for is what you did not ask me to do. You did not ask me what I was
going to say, you did not ask me to write it out for you to review, you did not ask for a
rehearsal, you did not ask me to hold back. No, I was front and center with my own
thoughts and my own wards. That’s not happened often, if ever, in my life. I was scared
shitless, if I may sound like a sec for once. I knew what I wanted to say, and I ran it
through my head over and over. I keep waiting for you to say what you never said. It
came out pretty much the way I had written it in my head. I will say that our
conversations have helped me to organize my thinking, and I should thank you for
listening and explaining. But, what I really want to thank you for is letting me be myself.
I needed to do that, and now I have done that.”
She turned, walked back to the stool, turned toward me again but with her head bowed,
her arms across her chest and asked, almost pleaded, “How far have I wandered?”
I walked slowly toward her, my reverberations having quieted, I pulled her into an
embrace.
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---“Before I try to answer that, do you want something to drink or to eat? It's late
afternoon so I'm not sure what to serve or what I have to serve. Also, how about a
workout? It might be helpful.”
---“Believe it or not, what I want is a glass of wine but not if we're going to work out. I
remember you once telling the story of attending a cocktail party and then going to the
gym and tying to work out . . . .”
---“I couldn’t lift anything. I lay on the bench with the bar across my chest. We don’t
drink up and work out, but we can reverse it. I keep feeling that I should be enforcing
abstinence, which has been your code for all of your life, and yet I'm a goner – I love
wine and booze and champagne. To your question . . . .”
While still holding her, I wanted to praise her performance and to calm her fear. In a few
sentences that somehow flowed together I assured her that the thought never crossed my
mind until she said what she just said that we should rehearse anything, that I expected
her to be honest, to make her stand from both her head and her heart, that she should
expect the unexpected, as she tried to gauge what her life may entail, what to embrace
and what to reject and that her options were no longer narrowed to the world of her
family or her church or the community that she had long known but derived now from
different sources that she had to learn to understand and if necessary to challenge.
---“For what it was worth, take it slowly and slowly and slowly.”
Her embrace tightened, and while I wasn’t sure she had heard me or wanted to hear me,
I was more worried about two bodies testing the boundaries. I wasn’t sure how much
longer I could stay in this game of being what I was trying to be. I was faltering. I’d
already lost whatever leverage a therapist would have because Beth and I had exchanged
too many stories about things we shouldn’t be talking about the way we were. I could
not back up and reclaim the high ground that I’d lost.
She fooled me again. She heard and reacted. We separated and sat.
---“I reached a stage today that is pretty fundamental. I'm not going back. I have no
interest and, more importantly, despite what I just said, I have less fear. All the doubts
I've stored away over the years have come into play. If God is still in my life, he will
assume a different form and role from what He or, may I interpose, SHE may have been
before. Not being able to pray and not having simultaneously a breakdown because I
couldn’t was an eye-opener, and soul-smacker – a terms we use in the evangelical
business to describe a revelation. I understand what you’re saying – rebuilding will be
difficult and take time – but that's where I am at this moment. Amen.”
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We both laughed. For certain, now, I had that sinking feeling the game had changed
more quickly and more profoundly than I had anticipated. Eventually, I’d thought, she
could reach the stage she just described. She was already where I’d intimated to her
parents she might end up. I’d expected more back and forth between them before she
would decide. Since that night at Gino’s table, I was the one who was animated by the
unexpected that I had just warned her about. She was smart and savvy and more to the
point she was showing it with fewer deeply troubling reservations than she may realize.
“Amen” meant something more than the end of a prayer.
---“My experience with men is limited. I'm used to taking orders and not asking why I
should take orders. I've thought about this a lot as I've gotten older. I have used almost as
much energy paying attention to how you behave, as I have trying to get myself through
this. It's been a soul-smacker,” words followed by a big smile.
Before I could respond, she sprang from her stool and walked briskly to her bedroom.
---“Let’s dress for the gym and bring your grocery bag so we can stop at Small Mall. I'm
gonna be hungry tonight. By the way,” she said, as her bodyless face peered around the
kitchen doorway. “I'm buying because my parent gave me the money that was owed me
before I copped out on the mowing.”
Neither Claudia nor her spouse was in the gym when we arrived. No explanation about
Beth’s membership was apparently necessary because the attendant nodded, as I signed
us in. When we got to the weight area I saw Jeff lying on the bench. Jeff was a student in
the local police academy, having enrolled after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Occasionally, we worked out together, and I had learned some things about his tour. He
wasn’t much interested in what I did, although he knew I had a connection with the
university medical faculty. I had observed that he seemed at ease with himself about his
time in Iraq, and I had assumed that since he was a member of a military police brigade
assigned during the surge, he had missed the worst of the Iraqi turmoil. The fact was I
didn’t know much because he didn’t say much.
I had also kept my political views hidden. I had opposed the Iraqi endeavor from minute
one. I’d never asked Beth about her views, and given that she was an evangelical but
from a pacific background I simply did not know what stand, if any, she’d taken. When I
introduced Beth to him, I could see his eyes flicker with interest. In the gym she was a
very attractive woman, and since his height was at least 6'3” or 6'4”, he was not put off
by hers. The three of us worked out for the next hour, and Jeff was more interested in
talking to Beth than to me, and I rather enjoyed the banter that young people can engage
in. I had not revealed anything about Beth, figuring that Jeff could probably find out as
much as he needed to know. Beth seemed less interested in him than he was in her, but
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she was amiably conversant. I had no doubt that Jeff would try to make a date, although
I never heard the precise invitation.
I felt like a father watching over a special daughter, but I had no need to be concerned.
To my amazement, she was controlling the conversation, not him, and given the little I
knew about him, I was amazed how unfazed she was by the attention that Jeff showered
on her. At the end of the workout we all walked out together, shook hands and parted.
Beth and I headed to the Small Mall, talking not about the workout but about the
weather. It had turned cold and windy again.
The Small Mall was full of shoppers, but when Gino saw us, he came right over, gave
Beth a hug and me a wink instead of a hug. Gino and Beth started talking, almost as if I
had disappeared, and what I heard was Beth giving him a rundown on what had
happened during the “intervention” (she called it) in my condo. More evidence, to my
further surprise, that the afternoon session had not only opened some doors but, also and
more so, had closed some. Gino put his arm around Beth's shoulders, as we walked to
the Deli. I was not privy to the conversation, a bit of a relief because I’d been privy to
more than my usual quotient for the week. Even though Beth was prepared to pay for the
dinner that she had selected for us, Gino would have no part of it.
---“Tomorrow you pay, tonight you feast,” was Gino's command, and in Small Mall, that
command could not be reversed.
At home we showered and sort of dressed for dinner, which was a series of small plates,
a fresh baguette, wine, (Beth drank a small amount), cheese and a slice of torte for each.
I thanked Beth for a wonderful meal, and she shot back in that wry humor, which I had
come to expect,
---“Should we send Gino a thank-you note?”
As we cleaned up the dishes, my cell went off, and according to the screen it was Lizzie
calling. I whispered to Beth who was calling and she waved me out of the kitchen and
into the Great Room. Lizzie apologized for calling in the evening, but she was hoping I
could attend a meeting tomorrow on the topic we had discussed earlier, and if I could
she thought that would be the extent of my involvement. Lizzie was very good at
making deals, and that was what this was. She was also an honest broker, and I accepted.
Then, Lizzie added that if Beth was interested accompanying me, Lizzie would see to it
that her assistant talked to her about the job listings.
When I informed Beth of my conversation with Lizzie, she was obviously pleased with
the prospect of finding out about job opportunities. She sat down at the bistro table with
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tea from a pot she had made for both of us, and looking off into some ill-defined space
said,
---“How lucky am I? I'm adrift in the secular world that I had been taught to fear and yet
I have shelter, I have food, I have support, I have not been assaulted, belittled or
threatened. I can’t say I’ve lost all my fears, but the bigger lie would be to insist I’m
terrified of what’s ahead. I’m not. My religious upbringing did not prepare me for what I
want or who I want to be, and I’m now prepared to ditch it, or most of it. I can’t go back
even in a modest way. Weeks ago I was clueless as to what to expect. I’m only slightly
more clued in than before – the Good Doctor, would he not say . . . ‘Are we ever truly
clued in?’ – but I'm ready to be further tested. Maybe, it was the wine, which I think I
can develop a taste for, just as I think I can develop a taste for the sec life I’m learning
about. I'm feeling lucky. Should I, Doctor? Or should I be asking D-Man?” as she lifted
her head and looked rather sternly at me.
---“Haven’t you answered your own question? By the way, beware, this is D-Man
speaking.”
---“I deserved that. But . . .but, my Good Doctor slash D-Man slash Ace – if I may be
allowed to add the third – a question to a question is not an answer.” With her chin
resting on her palms, she persisted: “Let me try that again . . . .”
---“Ahhhhh . . . you can feel lucky but don’t let luck be your guide. A fickle companion
at the very least.”
---“I like that. Thank you. That the briefest and ironically – have I used that word
before? – one of your best answers. Have you thought about a book of useful sayings for
poor, suffering misguided souls? It might even find its way into the evangelical
community.”
---“A soul smacker, perhaps?”
---“No,” she said without pause. “More outrageous than that . . . you haven’t learned yet
how to be sanctimonious and nasty at the same time . . . oh, it's the wine again . . . I can’t
imagine what my heavenly merit chart must look like now,” as she jumped off the stool
and then walked toward me.
With her hands planted on my shoulder, she kissed me warmly on the lips and then
pulled back, dropped her hands but not her head, and said, “That was not the wine but I
don’t know what it was, and I don’t want you to tell me. I'm going to bed, I'm suddenly
very tired . . . I'm not going to think for a while . . . I've been doing a lot of that lately . . .
and thanks.”
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She quickly disappeared into her room. That was the second kiss of the day, but they
were different. I stood leaning against the same counter of the earlier kiss, almost
paralyzed. I put out of my mind what I knew I wanted to put in my mind. Puttering
around the kitchen seemed the best things to do until I felt more settled. I caught up on
the other events of the day, answered some emails, checked my portfolio – dull routine
can often purge the right hemisphere – and finally – more dullness – looked at the
headlines on my electronics.
Lo and behold, news on the arrested hedgers. They were indicted and remained in jail in
lieu of a huge bond they had not yet raised. For good reason because they, like their
money, might be looking for other climes. What caught my eye, however, was the
remark by the US Attorney that the investigation had been expanded to include huge
gambling debts rung up by those in jail and the recently-deceased Conway . . . .
The missing link! Gambling debts, West Coast casinos, Natalia’s family. I remembered
our conversation when I was with her in Manhattan but I couldn’t remember that she’d
directly mentioned gambling debts. I hadn't inquired any further.
Even though I had spent time at Tahoe and around casinos, I knew next to nothing about
how casinos operated. I didn’t much care for that life and seldom entered their portals.
How do you accumulate huge gambling debts? Apparently not pay as you go. Don’t the
casinos shut you off before you cost them too much? I’d heard about the private rooms,
usually on the top floors of the casinos, for the biggies. I guess Blister and his friends
were biggies. I reflected in some sadness that Conway would love being considered a
biggie.
I could not help but wonder about Natalia. Natalia and I loved each other in a way that
would always be ad hoc. If we ever met again, I knew that we might pick up where we'd
just left off or we might revert to where we had been before some codes smashed into
each other. I won't know unless it happens.
I also thought about Dell and Marge, whom I’d not heard from since the memorial
service. I’d grown increasingly suspicious that they, as well as Natalia and Scott, knew
more than they’d ever confessed to me. They were under no obligation to do so.
Nonetheless, I felt a little miffed . . . being dragged in without being told the whole story
. . . assuming they knew the whole story. Blister had rejected as unseemly any
involvement by me, and in a curious way he was being more honest than the rest had
been. Marge’s questions the night we dined together before I met Natalia and the team of
gun slingers made more sense now. I was willing to bet they knew about Blister’s casino
life. I began to wonder that, as well as I thought I knew this crowd, was there a side
room I was never admitted to besides the one Natalia admitted me to. Possible.
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Not much doubt now that Natalia, who never directly explained why she was invited to
join the legal team, even during those hours of deep confession about so much of her
life, had glossed over some disquieting facts. It mattered not. She arrived, she departed,
she arrived again, she departed again. That was a pattern I could expect but not one I
wanted to build my life around. A good memory, Natalia, in bed and out of bed.
While shutting down my electronics and having tamed my libido, I could see my cell,
dancing, not with a phone call but with a text message. When I looked at the name, I
mumbled,
---“How could this be happening?”
It was a message from Marge, the same one I’d been reflecting upon. It said:
---“Call me tomorrow at this number.” It closed with “Urgent.” The unexpected has
popped up again. I decided that was enough for one day. I flicked off the lights and
quietly walked to my room. I couldn’t begin to imagine what was so urgent. I needed
sleep, and once in bed sleep came quickly.XXX
I awoke later than I had hoped, although I smelled the coffee right away. I had been
thoroughly trained by now to know that a special gnome occupied my kitchen early in
the morning. I also was trying to recollect the dream, at least a sliver of it to record later.
I was in a place, a room, a theater that was alive with activity, almost vibrating, and yet I
was the only one there, so far as I could tell, totally alone, sitting or standing, looking
into and through the space, for I could see space and feel movement from whatever was
moving, and yet I was not really located anywhere in the space or in the theater. I’ll have
to think about this later, I said to myself, as I hopped out of bed, grabbed slippers and
robe, and one-footed it through the doorway into the kitchen. And, there was coffee – it
greeted me in my recently-purchased Peet's mug, as I made my entrance.
---“You’re hired,” I said in a much too loud voice that crackled in my own ear canals.
---“Sorry, no temp job for me. I'm moving on to the executive suite – no more gofer
roles. But, good morning, anyway. I was just about to knock on your door. Would that
have awakened you? I'm dubious.”
---“Every right to be. Occasionally, I have to get up for a meeting or a flight, but since I
make every effort to have them in the afternoon I can pretty much sleep the morning
away. By the way, I hope making coffee has something to do with your new executive
job – this is good,” as I took another sip.
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We chatted about what I assume many couples chat about first thing in the morning – I
don’t remember we ever did because our schedule were so different – before the juices
are flowing. I explained about the urgent call from Marge and said I hadn’t a clue except
it had to be something about the family. We finished breakfast, dressed, and were hailing
a cab for the trip downtown to the medical center. Lizzie along with her daughter, Tera,
was waiting in her office. As we walked in, Lizzie said,
---“You’re never late, although any morning meeting is always a risk. Hello, Beth,” as
both she and Tera embraced her. “I'm told that things have calmed down. That's good
news,” added Lizzie. “And, I assume this old coot is behaving himself.”
She put her arm around my shoulder and continued, “I'm sorry I have to haul him off to
his favorite experience. In the meantime, Tera will introduce you to my assistant who
has some forms for you fill out and who will talk to you about employment. Come on,
my demented friend, we have some stuff to get through, and then I’ll buy you lunch
while Tera and Beth take a break from the immature adult world.”
Lizzie, never rattled and always articulate, had my attention. She did it with warmth and
flair at the same time. (I had never regretted hiring and promoting her.) She was forever
reminding me that she hadn’t yet figured out how I had navigated all the shoals. She was
right – it was a tricky hire because she had enemies in the field and in the department.
When I had an administrative role, I didn’t play good democrat very often. Almost
impossible to get anything done in the academic world being a good democrat. That's
why administrators should pay heed to the Biblical injunction for fertile and fallow.
Expect the fallow. A couple of months ago Lizzie told me on the q-t that she was going
to resign her position at the end of the academic year, for the same reason. We're not
indispensable we both agreed.
As we entered the conference room, she said she would need to make some
introductions. She was not sure where she stood on the matter to be discussed, and that's
why we needed to do lunch. With an absolutely woebegone look she declared, if she
didn’t get my opinion today, she doubted I’d show up here again for another six months.
I nodded in the affirmative with an equally woebegone look, when I felt my cell
thumping. Another call from Marge, and looking at Lizzie, I mouthed later.
At lunch after a two-hour session, longer than Lizzie had anticipated, she ordered wine
for both of us, without asking. Her tastes were impeccable, and I didn’t object, although
I was violating my 5-PM rule. She was unhappy or disconsolate or both. We were sitting
in a bistro close to the medical school, and I thought to myself this was where the
meeting should have been held. Less pomposity and more relaxation.
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---“I invited you to ask two questions, you asked precisely two questions, and the
unspoken snarls are still palpable in my consciousness. This is what happens when deans
and higher outside certain fields of which they know little decide something before they
ask the people in the know.”
---“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make a bad-hair day for you. Do you really want this project
to go forward?”
---“Not from day one but somehow I got outflanked. I couldn’t put my figure on the
problem but you did – and thank god you did. I hadn’t thought to compare the various
protocols to see how they would fit together. How did you know they were potentially
incompatible?”
---“Don’t forget, Lizzie, I sat on more government panels than I can remember. What
really tipped me off was the divergence of academic research backgrounds. I couldn’t
figure out how the protocols of the anthropologists and sociologists were ever going to
accommodate the protocols of the neurologists let alone the protocols of the
hematologists and clinicians. Too many notes if you will. Then, it dawned on me,
without anyone saying anything, that this whole thing was dreamed up at some upperechelon administrative level and then handed down to the individual participants without
ever being vetted in some common discourse. That led to the second question about
whether anyone had given attention to the disparities in the research literature among the
various fields – of course, no one had. The project could work but not in its present
form. No government panel would ever buy it. Everyone around that table has more
work to do, especially reading up on the research in other fields than was ever done
before today. Believe me, that won't happen. The burden would fall on you to pull the
shit together, explain the ins and outs, etc., and without any assurance you could make it
to work. You know I'm inherently lazy and would never try to direct this damn monster.
Perhaps, I should keep my jaundiced views to myself.”
---“Unlikely and let’s toast the demise of crap, at least on my watch. By the way I sent
my letter of resignation, so . . .when I tell the Dean of the Medical School and the V-P
for Research this afternoon the project sucks, my letter will be on the Provost's desk.
Interesting convergence. I like the new med-school boss, but this originated somewhere
else. Did you not know about this?”
---“Never saw it before. I've seen similar proposals. One thing that happens in a place as
big and diverse as this is that areas lacking funding look around for areas well-funded.
The med school and the general area of health sciences are among the best funded, so
crazy proposals came down the tube from other places remote from the med school.”
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---“I know one of the criticism of you was your bitchiness toward research proposals
involving big teams. I can see why now.”
We clicked our glasses, finished our meal and returned to Lizzie's office where Tera and
Beth were waiting.
An hour later we were back at the condo, and we both thought a cup of tea was a good
idea on a cold afternoon. I'd never liked tea before. What did that say or imply? While
the tea was steeping, I very briefly explained to Beth what had transpired, and I was
surprised how much interest she showed. She poured the tea, and we sat in front of the
sliding glass door. It was turning nasty outside, and I wondered if we would do the gym,
as we had talked about on the way home. She described what she and Tera had done, and
she thought the interviews had gone as well as could be expected, given her lack of
exposure to these things. She liked the idea of working in a lab, even at grunt work, but
she understood that she had no experience and the hard-working bit could apply to
dozens like her. Since this was new to her, she decided to keep her expectations in
check.
---“I need to call Marge, I got another message from her just before the meeting. Do you
want me to slip away to my bedroom or do you want to be an innocent bystander?”
---“Bystander, mainly because I love being a snoop . . . .”
I dialed Marge's number, and she answered immediately. I apologized for the delay, and
she also for being so insistent. In the next sentence – a shocker – she said Dell had
bolted, and, she added, she thought to Natalia. There was a long pause; I was having a
hard time registering what she said. Finally, I asked if I had heard her correctly, and she
assured me I had.
In a few minutes she filled in the basic details, none of which made much sense to me. I
was beginning to wonder if I was connected to someone I really didn’t know and should
hang up on. Marge didn’t seem to know, if this had been a longstanding affair or of
recent origin, say, since Natalia and I slept together. I hesitated to ask the questions that
were crossing my mind: where, when, how?? All she kept repeating was “I can’t believe
this” or “How could I not have known”, and I wanted to reassure her we've all asked
similar questions, but I didn’t.
I learned that her sister was arriving later in the evening because not only was she falling
apart over Dell, but her parent’ health had also deteriorated significantly since Blister's
death. Still, at a loss to find the right words, I asked, if it would help in the form of I
could come to the city to see her.
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---“I was so hoping you'd ask – I was afraid to. I should have been in touch earlier, if for
no other reason because I could feel my anger was turning destructive. Some of the
china is missing, and I don’t want to explain why. Yes, I need someone to talk to, and
you would be my choice. Can you come?”
---“I can grab a train tomorrow morning . . . .” Before I could finish, I heard,
---“Please do. My sister's staying here, but I’ll reserve the room for you at Dad's club. I
could meet you there at . . . .” Marge knew I was a late riser, and so I filled in a time,
---“How about 2:30. I can catch the 11-something and be at the club by 2. It's a short trip
from the station to the club.”
---“Perfect, oh thanks so much, and I’ll provide the Kleenex unless you guys have a
special brand for very pissed-off near-sixty-year-olds.”
---“We do, and I’ll be sure to pack it. It's gratuitous to say 'relax' but it's worth a try – let
your sister be a diversion, even as you have to tell her everything. OK, I’ll see you
tomorrow.”
---“Tomorrow, and thanks again.”
When I clicked off the phone and turned to Beth, I could see an expression of WTF (not
her language) and genuine curiosity.
---“It's crappy weather, this is a crappy story, but you can be privy if you promise to
accompany me through the crappy weather to the gym. What’s worse than the weather . .
. I have no idea why I agreed to what I did.”
---“Deal!”
So for almost an hour I described and explained, and she asked questions that required
more explanations and descriptions. I thought this is good practice for tomorrow. I just
may use some of her questions. As I finished, I asked myself if I really understood what
all these events added up to, and the answer was I didn’t. I wondered, if Beth, as an
outsider, might have some special insights. She shook her head more than once usually
followed by something like you’re kidding. I decided not to ask further. I finished up
with what she had already figured out . . . tomorrow I was taking the train the city to
spend the day with Marge. I may also have to stay overnight. We talked about her day on
her own, and we agreed she could venture out without protection. We dressed for the
gym and took off in a cold, wintry wind.
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As we entered the gym, Claudia, bundled up to take on the outside elements, was
making her exit. She embraced Beth, and then turned to me and said,
---“I wish I could stay and watch – a jolly surprise for you, my love . . . .” With that she
kissed me on the check and was gone.
Beth and I looked at each other. I hadn’t a clue, and Beth was looking and smiling, as if
now what? I looked across the room and quickly discovered the jolly surprise, the Emily
of the “R-Squared” period. Alone, I might have decided on a hasty retreat, but Beth had
already walked far enough into the interior of the room and toward Emily
(unknowingly) that I had no choice but to follow. Besides, Emily had fixed her big
beautiful hazels on us like a laser. Her hands had not yet found their way to her hips, but
they soon would. I had to come up with something. Toward the center of the room we
stopped because Emily had more or less blocked our way, not in a threatening manner,
more friendly than I had expected.
---“I did not expect such a warm welcome on my first day back,” Emily said, as she and
I embraced, and Beth looked on warily, if for not for any other reason because the
embrace was longer than most. Although nothing was said, she must have realized that
Emily was someone more than a mere acquaintance, and that would be true.
---“Yes, warm welcomes are among my specialties – how are you?” I asked as we
disengaged.
Before she could answer Beth introduced herself, and I added she was a house guest
until she found her own quarters. I didn’t say how I knew Emily, but I needn’t have
worried because Emily did more or less.
---“I’m glad to meet you, Beth. You’re in good hands. He's harmless in an erotic way.
Ignore all the blather that must be made up in another universe. His heart is sound, even
if his head isn’t.” She patted Beth’s hand and winked.
A woman I’d never figured out how to reign in. Beth began to laugh, as she winked back
and clasped Em’s hand.
---“Am I right?” Em asked pointing at me. “You didn’t know I was returning to the med
school. I can read in your face that reveals everything. You never learned pokerface, did
you?”
---“Right on both counts,” I replied before she continued, almost without pause, ignoring
me and directing her remarks at Beth.
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---“While I was a graduate student, I worked out here, and now that I'm returning I
thought I’d reactivate my membership.”
---“I've been a member for a few days, and I can understand why you would return. I
like it here,” answered Beth almost nonchalantly.
---“I never expected to return to the place of the fateful meeting of Man-In-Charge,” she
said slowly and emphatically, “but I’m here by special appointment. I'm doing
biostatistics out of the med school’s Dean's Office, but I will eventually have an
appointment in a new interdisciplinary center for applied statistics. Since I was a
temporary appointment at the other job, I was free to leave whenever I wanted to. The
dean wants me to get some things underway before I start working at the center. I
thought it was a good time to come back and settle in.”
Looking back at me with the gaze I knew well. I tried to prepare for the volley ahead.
---“When they dumped you, they really dumped you.” Beth bent over in laughter, and I
couldn’t avoid showing a huge smile. Em was at her best. She gave Beth a hug after
extending an invitation to have a longer talk another day, privately, said with emphasis
meant for me to hear.
---“And you. The enforcer’s back. Behave!”
A longish hug. I could not feel her lips moving against my ear, but I could hear her
words.
---“My sweet roué, no one knows. Arrows flung. Y solved, e small. Now regress. Stories
and lives have endings.”
I stiffened, not too noticeably, I hoped, but, as she turned to walk away, the past few
seconds, the unarticulated words and the entanglement with the future became
encapsulated in another dimension that seemed, no, quite literally, as I experienced it,
walked away with her. The further she walked, the less I could remember about what
had just transpired.
I could not avoid observing Beth who was more curious than scared watching her
departure, those long strides, so lithe, so airy, as if she refused to connect with the reality
around us.
---“In the name of . . . .” Beth never finished that sentence before she regrouped and
restarted.
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---“In the presence of someone not of this world. That’s how it felt.” She turned to me
and spoke,
---“Dare I ask how well you know her? I sensed more than just acquaintances or am I
overreacting?” We walked to the weight section, which Emily never entered.
---“You’re reacting as you should. She’s smart, brimming with willpower and almost
other-worldly. She's not easily rattled. I’ll fill you in tonight after our workout. Besides,
someone else has an interest in our arrival.” Just then Jeff came over and greeted us. I
thought, this was the best thing that could happen right now.
They had several conversations out of earshot for me, but I was sure I knew what Jeff
was trying to make happen. I thought it best a long shot. I could also see that Emily was
watching the events from her perch on the Stair-Master. Both Emily and Jeff left before
we did. On the way home, now bitterly cold, Beth asked my advice on whether she
should accept Jeff invitation to a movie.
---“I don’t know much about Jeff, but I think you’re quite capable of handling any such
situation. Have you observed anything that might make you uncomfortable?”
---“Not really, just the thought of dating him. His background is not exactly the same as
mine, from what he’s told me, but too close to make me feel comfortable.” By then we
had reached the entrance, where Dominique was standing. He greeted us, and then I
explained that I would be gone tomorrow and perhaps tomorrow night, and Beth would
be by herself. Dominique responded along the lines that we had been thinking, the risk
was virtually nil. He assured us that he would be on guard.
After showering, we decided on some homemade potato and leek soup along with
cheese and bread and again some wine. I knew what the conversation should be, but I
put it off as long as I could. Twice Beth's cell went off, but after checking the screen she
decided to let the calls go to voice-mail. We were both hungry and ate more than usual.
For the first time I thought I detected as relaxed a Beth as I had seen. To reinforce this
view she said that each night she slept a little sounder and a little longer, adding soon
she'd catch up to me. With a little bit of wine left in our glasses, the conversation worked
it way around to Emily. I asked if I could pour myself a little more wine, and she said, of
course, but she was tipsy enough. While I was up, I also sliced a couple of fresh pears.
And the story began.
---“The anticipation of what the story might be may be more exciting than the actual
story. It is mainly a story about two people of very different ages with common interests
and similar personalities” – I looked up from my glass of wine to see the flicker of a
smile and then I heard ‘And with big plans’ and it was my turn to smile – “and utter
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failures at executing them. We genuinely liked each other but knew almost instantly that
anything approaching intimacy would mean trouble. We joked about it, but let me allay
any fear or curiosity you might have by saying flat out we were never lovers, never even
came close. Does that deflate the story to the point of no interest?”
---“I’d better hear the story so I can judge if you’re telling the truth. You know we
seekers can spot self-deception and self-illusion, which, need I remind you, D-Man, are
the work of the devil.”
---“I’ll accept the test. The devil and I are on the best of terms. He’ll protect me.
---“Emily showed up in my life quite by accident. She was an undergraduate Politics
major. She was very good at that in part because she had lived a lot of her life in other
countries and cultures. She spoke several languages and had only briefly attended
American public schools. Truly cosmopolitan. She also came from wealth and privilege
– she would cuss me out, probably in three languages, if she heard me say that – but it
was earned rather than inherited. Her father was trained as a scientist but had given up
research and academe to join the corporate world. He is currently the CEO of a major
global manufacturing company.
---“Em decided to pursue graduate work not in Political Science but in biostatistics. It
sounds strange, but, in fact, it's not so strange. Her boyfriend at the time had been
admitted to the medical college, and she had decided to do something in the general field
of medicine and health, although she had no interest in training as a doctor. The more
important reason, it turned out, since she and her boyfriend eventually broke up, was
that she was a whiz at statistics. It was a passion of her father. She once told me that the
games they played at restaurants was figuring out stat problems as fast as they could in
their heads.”
I took another pause, and Beth asked if I should have known that Emily had been
appointed to the faculty I once led.
---“It is strange in a way, but strange is normal for me. I've had almost no contact with
the med school in the past year and I barely know the new dean whom I interviewed and
vetted but did not arrive until after I announced my retirement and began to make my
exit. Except for Lizzie and her husband and one or two others I had few close friends at
the med school. When we're together socially, we seldom talk about the university. Also,
I never read the mailings I get, so, if it were announced, I could have easily missed it.
---“I discovered as I was winding down my my contentment level was rising. I rather
liked that. It simply made me more eager to build a wall. Working in academe,
especially at a high-powered medical facility and research university, can leave one
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exhausted. Lizzie who's younger than me by more than a decade has already reached the
exhaustion point, and while she will not retire yet, she will quit the the administrative
post and devote herself to her lab. Her husband, on the other hand, likes the
departmental machinations and will probably stick with it indefinitely, or at least until
the exhaustion finally hits him.
---“Since I was leaving, I had no interest in following university careers or university
developments. For the past few month, I have been almost entirely free of any university
connections. After I announced my resignation and since I was entitled to a sabbatical,
which I would not use, I was de facto Provost with no connection to the medical school
whatsoever. The Associate Provost was named acting Provost until the new appointment
arrived, and while the President insisted that new decisions be cleared with me in the
interim I spent more time at home than at the university. The meeting with Lizzie's staff
was done as a personal favor. I'm trying to make living behind the moat permanent. I
could have easily missed Emily’s appointment, especially as it’s temporary . . . what we
call in the business an adjunct appointment.”
---“What is hard for me – probably because I'm so inexperienced in your world – what is
hard to understand is why you prefer – at least that's what you say – to be as removed as
you are when you are well-liked and easy to get along with?”
---“I do well in short-term arrangements, not so well in long-term ones. I have a few
friends from way back but not many, and the few I have would hardly qualify as close,
intimate, call-me-every-day friends.”
--“You and Emily never had a 'get lost' moment?”
---“Never except for the crazy conversations that two big egos can have. Emily is smart
and sassy, qualities I admire. I used to do more numerical analysis in my early days, but
I did little after I moved into administration. I called upon her from time to time to lend
me assistance or to help another professor or administrator who quantitative skills were
modest. But, she soon became the darling – in more than one sense – among the faculty.
She is a handsome woman, and she can do a regression faster than anyone I’d ever seen.
It was a part of her DNA. Male faculty in medical schools are notorious philanderers,
and Emily had to field a lot of phone calls and consulting sessions with guys who were
less interested in her regression skills and more interested in her physical attributes.
Although she's quite capable of defending herself, she was tiring of the attention. She
needed someone to talk to. Since I saw her almost daily at the gym, I became that
someone. No regrets because, as we devised strategies for her, we came to enjoy each
other's company and spent time socializing and bantering as well as strategizing.
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---“I’ve already told you, no romance, no sex, no assignation. Now, for the crux of this
tale that has you on the edge of your stool. There is almost an ephemeral quality to Em.
She’s here, she’s not, she’s definitely real, she’s teasingly not . . . I think, like you, we all
feel a gust of some other force in her presence. It’s funny . . . her med-school boyfriend
had similar qualities, as if they’d been transplanted from somewhere else we’re not privy
to. There’s a real life story, and that’s what we have to go by.
---“The final curtain until today, that is, was odd. After we had eaten pizza and listened
to music at Hermann’s one night, I did not see her during the next couple of days. Nor
had anyone else. I made some inquiries. Even called her on my cell since we had
exchanged numbers. She had cleared out. There were too many clues lying around to
suggest something nefarious. No . . . she just left. Today was the first I’d seen her since
our evening at Hermann’s. The story I haven’t heard is why the sudden exit and where
the exit had taken her. That’s eminently more interesting than learning that she’s
returned.”
---“Fair enough. Perhaps if Em and I have a conversation, I’ll find out. Do you want to
know, or would you rather live with the mystery and the fantasy that follows from that
mystery? Why spoil a good story?” Her head was cocked in a way that made the answer
self-apparent.
We cleaned up the kitchen. She kissed me on the cheek and disappeared into her
room.XXI
For the last hour, bound on the train with a cup of Peet's, thanks to Beth, for the City and
a meeting with Marge, I’ve replayed the events of the past few months, since my
retirement finally took effect. I’ve replayed them before, and, yet, they continue to
fascinate and bewilder me, with the addition of that phantom Em. If life continues at this
pace, one unexpected event after another, I may, like many of my former patients, fear
for my sanity. That causes me to smile, as I hear the conductor shout “Penn Station . . .
Exit to the Left.” In the remaining minutes I check my messages and decide what few
I’ve not opened can wait for a later time with a different rhythm.
I need to focus on what’s ahead. I haven’t much information . . . only that Dell took
flight and Marge sought my help. I recall my dream last night, and while it has become
foggy and fuzzy by now, I remember it had more shadows than recognizable images. No
yearning or longing, no puzzled expressions or sideways glances. I seemed to know
where I was, and why I was wherever I was. Em had said without moving her lips, had
portended . . . endings. I can theorize but I can't explain. Much of how we live cannot be
anticipated or planned, as hard as we try. The proof is in the pudding.
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I disembark and walk toward the line of cabs. I will do what I can for Marge, and then I
will strap my hands in my pockets. As I ride to our appointed place, I try not to speculate
on what I will find. Anger I can readily assume. How hard will I have to work at
suppressing the anger in order to get at what caused Dell’s flight, at least as Marge
understands it. And, she may not understand much at all. There is a story behind this
breakup, as there is behind every breakup. Getting the story right may take far longer
than an afternoon at her father’s old club and a dinner at Café Joul or some other eatery.
I decide that’s as much time as I have. I feel no shame or guilt over this self-imposed
deadline. The time has come.
I arrive at the Club about Noon, and the attendant looks puzzled when I announce my
purpose for being there.
---“Let me check,” she says, as she turns and walks into the office behind the counter.
When she returns, I see continued puzzlement.
---“I'm sorry there's no record that a room has been reserved. I even checked the phone
log, which is kept on the computer, and no records of any calls. Would you like to call
her home? We have her number.”
---“I think not. Perhaps I made the mistake. It’s been a busy few weeks. Thank you.”
I pick up my backpack and walk out into the street with a bounce in my step, which I
wonder if the clerk observes.
If there is no mistake, it’s the mistake I need. Outside I check my cell but no messages.
I turn in the direction of the bistro where all the assignations during my previous visit
began. Not exactly assignations, but another word does not come to mind.
I am sauntering toward the bistro, whose name I never checked out. It would make a
better line if I knew. Yeats slouched toward Bethlehem and Didion did too, although
Haight-Asbury replaced Bethlehem. I’m not slouching, though; never much of a
sloucher. I’m sauntering. But I need a name. That Marge stood me up unblocked neurons
responsible for clear thinking. I am processing again, and I had no desire or need to walk
in a straight line with blinders in place to my destination. I check out a few windows, I
wait for the walk signs, I hum but am smart enough not to sing. I am beginning to think
about what has to be done. I have always been better at the “has to” in my professional
life than my personal life, but that may be about to change.
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The bistro is ahead. Its name, I note for the first time, is Rendez-Vous. I’m shown to a
table on the edge of the patio next to the sidewalk. Perfect for what I want to do. I order
the House Wine, a Bordeaux. Violation of the 5-PM rule for the second time this week. I
say, when asked, I’ll order a plate later. No protests or smirks from the server. An
American who has adopted the French serveur manner.
The sunlight is warming what should have been a cold late autumn day. I notice that
Randez-Vous was taking no chances. The standup heat-umbrella lamps are lit. I begin to
scroll through my messages and then shift gears. I decide to ignore the messages and
texts and begin to type. First to Natalia, whom I haven’t heard since my last visit.
I have no idea where you are. I’m in the City on what I thought was a errand of mercy. I
was stood up. I’m wondering if you know why. You need not reply. Probably best if you
don’t. That I’m posing the ‘why’ to you is probably all that needs to be said. Being stood
up makes it both necessary and easy to turn the page. What I said to you in those
intimate moments, Natalia, I meant. We both knew we could not build a life from those
intimate moments. But, you were everything I said you were. You are a memory worth
keeping. Cupid's Love.
Where the hell did Cupid come from? I liked it, nonetheless.
I send it without a moment’s hesitation. The email address must still be active because I
get no Daemon message.
I sip more wine. C is next. This will take more time, not necessarily more words.
Are you hovering nearby? If you are, you’ll know where I am. Even if you aren’t, you’ve
surely been told. It’s time for us to square up. I love you C, as much as I could any
woman. But, our paths crisscross, never merge. I never thought I’d say that – you know
what a klutz I am in romancing – but I’ve said it. If I saw you again, I’d kiss you, I’d
fuck you until you took off again. It’s the ‘taking off’ – our modus operandi for years –
that I’m ready to ditch. How about you? You injected Beth into my life. I played it
straight, although she made me spin . . . stupid not bad psychiatrist because I'm no
longer a psychiatrist. I have no doubt she was briefly in danger, but the farm was every
bit as safe as my condo. She is a beautiful woman to be loved and adored, and after I
finish this note I plan to tell her that. You knew all a long I would fall for her but not fall
all the way. As distorted as all this sounds, I did what you expected of me and,
conversely, I did what I might not have expected of myself. Consistency, however, my
dear, is not my strong suit, foolish or otherwise. If I’d met her in the street, at the Small
Mall or in a bar, I would have tried to pull her in. Not that I haven’t thought about it, my
phantom, but I could always feel your hovering ever so slightly. I’ve always thought it
best to fall in love – because that was the way is always seemed to happen to me – with
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the unknown, the mysterious, not with the known, the familiar. You’ve crushed another
theory, haven’t you? Perhaps, you have twin I'm actually falling in love with? Not again!
I’m sitting at Rendez-Vous in a neighborhood you know well. Should I stay or go? I’m
not sure I want to wait until our age dismisses the oddity of us being together. The
revelation of the day, here and now, is I’m no longer in passive mode. I plan to pack my
belongings and bags and head out. Are you joining me, earlier than you had planned?
Bisous! Bien sur, c'est moi! La flèche de Cupidon!
Cupid again.
I do not send it immediately. I check the menu, wave to the server and place my order
for the Café Bourguignon. I watch the street crowd – some slouching, some sauntering,
some speeding – all with their own neural networks in play. I am happy to sit. My finger
is on the send button, and finally I release it.
I save the third note until after I’ve finished my repas and order (unheard of) a second
glass of house wine mid-afternoon.
I scroll through my texts and messages again. Nothing from Natalia or C but a text from
Beth.
---“Did you arrive?” is her simple question. I had my entrée, not food but hope.
I arrived, Thanks. I’m sitting outdoors at a bistro called Rendez-Vous. I was stood up,
but that may be the best thing that could have happened. It cleared my head. After 25 yrs
of being linked one way or another with the Parish Family, it has come to an end. The
family has collapsed out of existence. The clarity that brought me leads to a moment and
place I’ve been skirting. Your kiss this morning now lingers on my lips, as you had
intended. I’ll be home late evening/early night, but there is a Cole Porter song, ‘Get Out
of Town’ . . . ‘Get out of town/Before it’s too late my love . . . Just disappear/I care for
you much too much . . . So on your mark get set/Get out of town.’ And, if you do, go
with my love.
I reread it several times. When the Crème brûlée arrives, I press send button. The
alcohol must be having some effect because as I lift my head I swear Sarah is seated
across the table. Holding the spoon of Crème brûlée, I whisper “Sarah, is that you?” Of
course, after a few second I realize I’m talking to myself. I finish my dessert and order
an express. If I’m high, I need to sober up. If I not, I still need to sober up. I pay and
walk toward MOMA. I plan to spend the rest of the time until the museum closes
immersed in what I know I love being immersed in.
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A de Kooning exhibit is exactly what I need. Being a member, I can enter by avoiding
the line to purchase tickets. So much about de Kooning I feel comfortable with. I do not
remember having seen his early black and whites, almost haunting compared to his
abstracts in color. Do I resemble some of the “Men” in his Men Series? And, how
special his Women Series. From early in his career a “Seated Woman” utterly
enchanting, and another early painting, “Portrait of Elaine”, captivating.
As I am studying some later paintings – “Woman in a Rowboat” and “Woman, Sag
Harbor” I can feel the vibration of my cell, and after moving to a corner to check the
screen, I see a reply from Beth.
---“Cupid’s arrow arrived with warning . . . .”
That was all her note contains. I’m not sure how I should feel. Does it matter? Not
really. How good a shot was Cupid? In one version, Apollo teased Cupid about his bowand-arrow skills. I did not mean to impersonate Cupid, and I sincerely doubt that
somewhere offstage a Cupid is working in my behalf. Three notes, three expressions of
love, three women . . . excess, perhaps, but what I’m searching for is resolution. I’d
never told Sarah how I felt about her, and when I told the painter how I felt, she reacted
in such a way as to make me scrap my bow and quiver. Did Cupid ever release three
arrows at once? As I continue to amble through the galleries, I decide that one in three at
the moment is not so bad . . . it could be worse.
The rest of the afternoon slips by. Whatever drunkenness I thought I’d entered into has
been quickly subdued by whatever ecstasy I now am feeling. I find myself inadvertently
looking for a Cupid painting or print or sculpture, but nothing shows up. This is MOMA
after-all. Most of the Cupid pieces I know are from the Renaissance and Baroque
periods, although I remember once seeing a William Bouguereau reproduction of Cupid
carrying Psyche off into a vibrant sky, an utterly gorgeous nineteenth-century painting.
Nothing on MOMA’s wall, however.
I feel my cell again. I look, and there is a note from C. Well, not a note exactly. An icon
of an arrow through a heart plus an equation I knew well. Without ever having
mentioned Cupid, I seem to have aroused him. Can we become our own Cupid? No
deities needed. Emails in the form of arrows. Words that pierce, harmlessly, I hope, like
arrows. If I remember, two sets of arrows: gold and iron . . . love and hate. I meant gold,
believe me, I meant gold to all three.
I check the train schedule and decide on the 8 PM.
I arrive at the station early evening and disembark two hours later.XXII
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I know that I slept almost the entire trip, but before sleeping had I not also fallen into a
fantasy world with which I’m not unfamiliar?
When I open the door to the condo, the interior is different, bathed in a new light and
bare except for two wing-backs facing the sliding glass door. Scrawled on the glass is a
message that glistens because the city lights illuminate it from behind:
---“Tonight we're all exercising our options! Arrows shot, hearts pierced!"
As I walk toward . . . no, as I’m drawn toward the chairs and door, she unfolds from the
wingback, turns toward me, opens her arms, without a word, and pulls me in. Our
tongues lie on each other in the most sensual kiss I’d felt in a long time. With her hands
and the longest fingers I’d ever known, she undresses me. When my pants and then my
brief fall to my ankles she drops to her knees and takes my cock in her mouth. I lean my
hands on her shoulders as she moves her mouth in and out without missing a beat. I can
barely stand, and the more she feels my wobbliness, the harder she sucks. Before I come,
she pulls me down on top of her onto what is the puffy duvet from her bed plus all the
pillows I own. Between the chairs and the glass door we are caught, illuminated . . . our
fucking, that is . . . in a near-full moon. She is moist, she is ready and she brings us both
to climax, a high I can only describe as divine. We become absolutely quiet except for
the breathing that grows calmer and calmer.
---“I wanted this to happen, and so did you. It has happened, and it will happen again. I
have no plans to relinquish my option.”
---“I don’t believe in miracles but . . . .”
---“But, you do believe in them when the Olympians intervene . . . we can’t escape the
divine, can we? I was destined to fuck you ages ago, before time, before now. I won’t ask
how you feel because I know”
I can see in the moonlight that a wry smile and endearing eyes. I do not know this
woman, and yet I do. I know all the women she is. We nestle ever more tightly.
---“No more questions, my love. I’ve been denied what we’re now going to make up for.”
I lift her to her feet. I assume we will depart to the bedroom. We stand with our arms
around our waists, and for how long I cannot say. We ever so gently and softly kiss,
caress, embrace, cuddle until I find myself caught in her gaze, penetrating and
beckoning, unlike anything I’d ever seen or felt, as if she’s willing me to enter her again.
She moves us to the wall, next the painter’s “Fuck You” painting. She leaned against the
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wall and brings me to erection, mostly by massaging her cunt with my cock. As she
inserts it, she pulls her legs up around my hips and pulls us both hard against the wall.
She whispers,
---“You can’t fuck me too much, you can’t love me too much, you can’t run, you can’t
hide, you can’t leave, you are taken, divinely taken. We’ll not fall. We’re divinely
suspended as well.”
We don’t kiss. We stare at the ceiling in utter ecstasy, an unexpected rhythm and
sensation leaning and fucking against a wall. When the divine suspension ends, we
crumple to the floor.
Her tongue caresses my ear, and we could both feel my body quaking in response.
---“I’ve found the magic, D-Man. I’ve found the magic.” She pulls gently on my lobe
with her lips. As magical as it has ever been with a woman who should not know magic.
---“You get to keep D-Man. I might decide to square it . . . D2-Man . . . devilish and
delectable . . . but right now it’s as much delirium for my lovable doctor as I can cause.”
I am embarrassed to think I may have acted out this fantasy or dream on the train. I am
not wet, however, a good sign. I want to think it was a harmless expedition into the
subconscious where Eros must reside, close to my libido. I’ll leave it at that.
When I actually open the door, which is unlocked, I sense I am crossing a new threshold,
even though I have crossed it many times before. I stop before I continue into a dimly lit
Great Room, feeling uneasy that I’m about to be confronted with what I’d just
dismissed. I look into my bedroom to my left and realize it virtually bare. The same as
pass and peer into Beth’s room and the kitchen. As I enter the Great Room, I can see a
message scrawled on the sliding glass door, but I’m too far away to read it or the room is
too hazy for me to read it.
I also see flickering of movement reflected in the sliding glass door. Now, in the center
of the Great Room, I stop and look around. There stands Dominique, holding a long
gold, silk scarf, decorated with representational and abstract bows and arrows. The room
fills with shadows whose faces I begin to recognize.
I walk closer to the sliding glass door, as Dominique slips the scarf around my neck, to
read the message:
Walk through the door
I am waiting
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The door slowly slides open. She appears, wearing the same scarf whose ends, as if
mandated, unite.
As we take flight across the night sky, she whispers,
We are not who we were
We are who we will be.
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