… a short story about a man’s final hours, as related to me.
It Bears Repeating
The first time I heard the news was right here in the parlor of Moore’s funeral home. I’ll tell you what happened because I need to hear it again myself. I find it hard to believe. Please allow me this last chance to tell my story. I don’t have much time. I’ll be brief. The last cocktail is kicking in.
Being dead, I must note before I move on, has its once-in-a-life time privileges: I can stretch out my legs and nap all I want. I don’t have to bother with bill collectors and more importantly I don’t have to listen to my ex-wives blather on about how horrible a husband I was. They did stop talking bad about me though. That was on Thursday the day I died. Before that day these women were probably right about me but there were times when I tried my darndest to love the heck right out of them, damn near killing myself in the…
“I don’t want you. I want your money.”
Yeah, that was what I heard at the end of two of my trilogy of marriages. That kiss of betrayal twice laid on me would be enough to break any man’s spirit, let alone his pocket-book. Heart and money gave out last Thursday and I wound up here looking at the insides of my stapled eyelids.
Now, I’m not looking for sympathy, just an ear, so lean in close, because my mouth is wired shut, too. There are things that need to be said, my side of the story, before the cover comes down and this chapter ends. And if there is another chapter, the gods, who must all be female because I’ve been a man of constant sorrow, may very well have taken note of my male deficiencies over the course of sixty-five years. They will not rule in my favor. And God help you if you snore or if your nose whistles while you are still alive and breathing. In fact, the gods may certainly deign to send me back as a woman – a large squat cat woman wheezing with asthma and having no idea the cat box litter needs to be changed – Pearl Purgatory.
Is there life after women? If there is I am pretty darn sure that there will be retribution for my lack of mind reading: “Because if I have to tell you, it doesn’t count.” And that will mean that I will be reincarnated en femme. As such I will be made to learn what women need, what women want and, more importantly, I will learn how to demand tele-empathy: holding every man accountable for every woman’s unspoken thoughts.
As I formerly live and breathe, if you don’t know what a woman wants before she opens her mouth you are already in the death’s hollows. And because I could not read the minds of the three females in my life I spent twenty-six years in the dog house barking at shadows and howling at the moon. My only reprieve being a weekly escape to the local tavern, a tavern serving dead-beat husbands like me. Thank God there was a “Joe” the bartender at TKO Tavern. I could read his mind.
And Joe could read mine. Tuesday nights the Miller Lite would stand waiting before my stool: tall, cold and gushing with anticipation. In that room filled with nodding imbibers, tattooed torsos and limbs and shouting TVs I would tell my story of woe to unknown people of every color and stripe. It was easy there. Everyone at TKO was in my corner for those couple of hours a week. Going home afterward I felt as if I just had therapy. Sleep would come and I would start again the next day. But the truth was always there standing over me in the morning.
Where was I? My feet are cold. They feel like lead. Did I own a suit and tie? Oh, yes. I wore a suit for the studio picture of me with my four kids last year. I see it now in the picture frame sitting on the top of the casket. But I’m starting to ramble, a foible also despised by the women in my life. What can I say? My mind became mush on women. But let’s go on before the fat lady sings my song.
Wife number one. After six months of marriage wife number one didn’t hang around for further conjugal visits. The umbilical cord between mother and daughter snapped her away from me like a bungee cord recoiling
I met Andrea at a Bible college. We dated while at school and then after graduation we camped out at her family’s home outside of Crown Point, Indiana. Every weekend I would drive from Illinois to her parent’s home in Indiana. I was hoping that her father would say just take the girl and get out the hell out of there. Her father, a straight arrow of a man, was predisposed to disposing with unnecessary words. His remaining words were pounded into arrow heads meant for a bullseye.
You see, Andrea’s father was native-American – an Apache. He liked him his TV, his Pabst, his pipe and his solitude. He made no demands on Andrea’s family other than “be quiet,” “shut up,” “get me some dinner,” bring me a cold one” and “don’t ever touch my pipe tobacco.” In this denizen of dysfunction Andrea stayed close to her cowering mom while avoiding her father. It would take me several harrowing attempts to ask him for Andrea’s hand in marriage. When her father said “Yeah, take her” I had hoped to leave the dystopia behind. I married Andrea in her family’s GARB church – that’s a General Association of Regular Baptists church for all of you outside of the Bible Whiplash Belt (No, I never had a crew cut).
The “hallelujah and amen” of nuptial bliss lasted about six months. Andrea’s father took a job transfer to Arizona – Arizona or Bust. I figured that with the transfer Andrea’s father could get back to his native-American roots. Being an oil refinery pipe fitter in Gary, Indiana was not the proper place for this son of the earth. He saw the transfer notice posted on the lunch room bulletin board and applied the same day. He never consulted his wife. I figured, too, that the desert would be a good place to drink, shoot a gun and fall down drunk. I gathered all of this from his stolid stare which told me everything and nothing.
In the moment when Andrea’s her mother told Andrea about the transfer Andrea decided that she and I had to move from Chicago to Arizona to be near her mother: “Or else.” It was The Ultimatum Express for me or the highway for her.
Now, I hadn’t mentioned this: before Andrea and I married I had a solid job in the Chicago area. Andrea and I had settled in an apartment an hour away from her mother. Things seemed quiet and sane apart from her family – us in Illinois, her parents in Indiana. But that was the problem: way too much sanity for Andrea.
So, without further discussion and a half-year after making our eternal vows to each other, vows which I found out would not indemnify the oath taker from the pain and loss of separation and subsequent divorce, our marriage was torn in two. I came home from work one day and found that Andrea had taken all her things and had left for Arizona. There was a note: “I’ve gone to Arizona. See ya.” She certainly had her father’s eagle-eye determination and his paucity of words. Suddenly I was left with my job, an apartment lease and dozens of unpaid bills. I was uncoupled and alone but mother and child were reunited, a co-dependency I probably should have seen coming.
After six months of being married in absentia and being surrounded by the four walls of loneliness I decided to go out to Arizona and plead my case for our as yet “unwrapped” marriage. I flew out to Phoenix.
The sun has finally moved behind the curtain. Good. Oh, there are lilies. I wonder who sent those. Maybe it was my daughter Anna. I wish she was here. My nose must be stuffed up. There’s not a smell in the house. Who are those people looking at me? Are you still listening?
The day I arrived in Phoenix the temperature was 121 degrees F. I couldn’t sit down in the rental car until the air conditioning had cooled the seats and steering wheel. Standing next to the idling car I thought my feet might stick to the black top taffy.
After checking into a room at the nearby airport Holiday Inn I immediately phoned Andrea and told her where I was. She sounded out of sorts when she told me that she would leave work at 4:30 and then drive up from Globe, Arizona where her parent’s lived. When I called her the week before and told her that I was flying out to see her she balked, “Come but don’t expect anything.” I came expecting everything. I bet it all on “See ya.”
The drive to phoenix took about an hour and forty minutes. I waited in the restaurant lounge of the Holiday Inn. I asked the bartender what he would suggest for someone waiting to be disappointed once again and who never had a drop of hard liquor. He put a Manhattan in front of me – a cherry about to drown in a sea of bourbon. Between the ebb and flow of Manhattans I would ride the elevator up to my room to see if I had any phone messages. Upon opening the door if I saw no red light pulsing in the dark room I would return downstairs to my drink. The waiting bourbon, sweet vermouth and bitters consoled me. The bitters and I were now comrades in arms.
At nine o’clock I finally saw the pulsing red light. Andrea had left a message: she’d be there in five minutes. I splashed some cold water on my face and headed downstairs.
Once back at my seat Andrea appeared at the door of the dining room. The soft knit turquoise dress she wore gathered all of my attention. The hands on her hips said, “Let’s go.” But after five Manhattans I was in no shape to go anywhere but up to my room. Andrea insisted that we get in her car and go back to Globe. But the liquor, now speaking on my behalf, failed to get my tongue to form syllables. “I rave de…,” was my only response so she relented and we went up to my room.
There Andrea and I sat on the edge of the twin beds and talked for five minutes. I can’t recall the things we talked about. At one point I got up, leaned over and kissed her. Shapely turquoise and stultifying bourbon would continue to have the same effect on me up until last Thursday. Now if I have one saving grace to present to the gods it would be my kissing ways. Playing trumpet for forty years puckered my lips into the perfect embouchure for kissing. A few nicely placed notes would make any woman’s ears wiggle. Actual levitation would occur. You’ll have to trust me on this.
I did try to sleep off the bourbon but luck wouldn’t have any of it. After a couple of hours we set out on Superstition Freeway and then U.S. 60 heading east toward Globe, Arizona.
I remember the full moon transforming the rough cut desert landscape into a B & W western. I half expected to see Tex Ritter or Roy Rodgers galloping along with our car. In the distance I could see saguaro looking like they were in a holdup, both arms up. Gila monsters and tumbleweed lurched into and retreated from the light of the headlight “projectors.”
We finally reached the town of Globe, a community of workers from the sliver mines. Up north in the Tonto Basin there was an oil refinery where Andrea’s father worked as a pipe fitter. His nature had taken its course.
I found a room at the eight room Globe Motel. After checking in Andrea and I grabbed breakfast at the Mother Lode diner. It was there at the diner that Andrea’s older brother showed up, a pack of Luckies rolled up in his tee-shirt sleeve. He had a pock-marked face and his jaw was set. He sat down across from me, flicked the ash of his cigarette into the ash tray and ordered a coffee. I didn’t know what to expect. His demeanor was always silent tough-guy gruff. He finally spoke: “So, you’re here to take my sister home?” “I respect that.” I breathed a sigh of relief but then he said, “I don’t think my mother wants that to happen.” My stomach tightened. After drinking his coffee down in two gulps he stood up and walked out. That was it. I was disposed of.
I looked at Andrea. She looked back at me over her glasses as if to say “don’t you see?” She went off to work and I returned to my motel room to ponder what just happened. I spent the rest of the day watching TV in my room hidden from the sun’s death rays. The tepid water in the motel’s outside pool offered no relief. I had lost my cool, too.
After passing a couple of monotonous days in the Globe Motel Andrea offered me a room in their parent’s guest house – a tiny adobe bungalow at the bottom of a steep gully shaded by mesquite and jojoba trees. That was better. Andrea would be closer but she could be a tease.
When Andrea finished work at 4:30 she would come down to the bungalow and spend hours kissing me like I was her best beau. She’d coo and I’d plead. Later she’d go back up to her parent’s house to sleep.
My return flight was on Sunday. Nothing had changed in the status of our marriage. Andrea said nothing about returning with me. I was perplexed to point of “Enough already.”
On Thursday I found a Globe Yellow Pages and looked for the name and address of her company. I bought a Rand McNally map at the Texaco. The place where she worked was on the outskirts of town. I drove my rental car to her office and walked right in. Andrea was nonplussed. She grabbed my arm, turned me around and took me out to the parking lot. She told me to stay away from her work. After some futile begging where I asked her to come home with me, I drove back to the bungalow feeling despair. I felt it where I never felt it before – in my feet. Later that night, though, she told me that on Saturday we would do something together. Hope and pace revived among the kissing.
Saturday morning we drove north to Tonto National Forest and Apache Lake. The reflection of the midday sun off of the bleached rock was blinding. We got out of the car and stood together on the bluff that over looked the cobalt blue lake.
“Denny, I have something to tell you. I have a boy friend.”
“What? What’s his name?” (What did it matter?)
“His name is Scott. I’m not coming home with you. I have divorce papers coming. I don’t want alimony. I just want to be here. I have to be here.”
There it was, that unspoken word that pulled the bottom out of everything: “over.”
On Sunday my dad was waiting for me at an Ohare Airport’s arrival gate: “At least you tried.”
“Yeah, I have that going for me.”
****
Who’s that? Do I know you? Someone please open my collar. It’s stuffy in here. Someone please open a window. I need some air. I promise the next bit will be shorter. I’ll have to rest soon.
Wife, part two. Melanie is a good woman. She didn’t get the best of me, though. I had become jaded after my first marriage to Andrea – philandering took the place of fidelity. I figured that I couldn’t count on just one woman to be there for me. At any moment she could go off the reservation and perhaps return to her mother’s womb. I didn’t trust any woman even though Melanie deserved it. Regrettably, I decided there was safety in numbers.
Melanie gave me two roly-poly boys. I never thought life could hold such inimitable joy as when these two were born. Fatherhood set the responsible part of me in stone forever. But the marriage part remained free-floating. And though I had two beautiful sons I kept up my selfish ways until one night. I came home and found all my belongings sitting out at the curb. I knocked on the front door but no one answered. I sobbed and knocked and no one answered. I had been locked out of the marriage. Later the sheriff would knock on my door with divorce papers: “I don’t want you. I want your money.” I had blown it with Mel and all of my change-of-heart soul-searching wouldn’t bring her back.
Wife, part three. Yes, I tried again. Once again I succumbed to the elixir of physical attraction. But this time I thought I had also found someone who didn’t just love me for my kisses. I met Bethany at the Pacific Club dance bar where on Friday nights a friend and I tried to hook up with the dancing queens. She and I met on a Friday night when I came alone.
After returning to my seat that night I heard a voice behind me say, “That’s my chair.” I turned around and looked into the face of a model. I said “Sorry. I went to dance and came back to my seat. But you can have it.” She sat down. We ended up going out to eat that night and talking for hours.
Bethany liked photography as much as I did. We both liked fine wine and gourmet food. And kids. She had a son from a previous relationship and I had two sons from Mel. After whirlwind dating for six months we decided to elope. I was pushing for this, perhaps unknowingly, thinking about the final net cost should there be a divorce – still jaded after all these years.
We set up shop in a suburban town west of Chicago. Two years later Bethany would give birth to a beautiful baby girl and then a boy two years later. Four kids now on the payroll.
The first Lamaze class with Mel awoke fatherhood within me. I was right at home with kids. But marriage relationships, no, no, no, they would not come home to roost. As it turned out Bethany was a very needy person. Instead of mother issues Bethany had father issues. The effects of family dysfunction had come full circle. There was also the bane of Bethany’s PMS. Every month I wanted to go into the husband protection program the moment Bethany’s voice took on the other-worldly tone of a candidate for exorcism and her eyes became blue steel beebees and her dissatisfaction with me amounted to me just being alive.
Beyond this, in her own special three Margarita way Bethany would let me know that I was never “man enough.” She went on to tell our marriage counselor that she didn’t “feel loved,” by me, that “Danny is clueless. He doesn’t know what a woman wants or needs.” In lay person’s terms, I wasn’t woman enough to be a man. And from what I could gather as a mere mortal Bethany had also been looking for the Old Spice-John Wayne-gladiator-movie-watching father-figure who lathered on the macho during her childhood. What she got was a Ward Cleaver-turned-Casanova-turned-“give-me-a-break” type.
Fourteen years later my marriage to Bethany ended with a prolonged, painful separation and a matter-of-fact divorce. With that cut off point came the demand for support: “I don’t want you. I want your money.”
That’s my “trilogy of women” story – the troika that did me in. In the end, emptiness is what’s left of me. It can be found everywhere in my life: empty vows, empty pockets and empty rooms to kick around in. I had emptied my emotions, too. This final loss was not paid for with tears. This loss was paid for with my health. I would soon break down, the hemlock of sorrow and depression working its diabolical alchemy. The only thing not empty in my life is this casket. And that brings me to my final state – death by marriage.
Who is that strawberry blond with the turquoise pendant? Is that Andrea? Who is that young guy with her? How did she know that I passed on? I wish someone would stop playing that damn organ. I want to hear what their…
Andrea: “Scotty, say goodbye to your dad. We have to go.”
© Sally Paradise, 2012, All Rights Reserved
Cindy Wity 