A Strange Commonplace (6 page)

Happy Days

M
AUREEN HAD BEEN SLEEPING WITH HER BOSS, PIERRE, for six months. Everybody called him Blackie, even the stock boys. He was such a good sport about everything that he didn’t mind at all. He’d told her that he was going to leave Janet, it was only his daughter that kept him from walking out on her right now, she’d turned into such a nag—nothing that he did was ever good enough for her. Surprisingly, out of the blue, as Maureen put it, he showed up at her apartment one Friday night about nine o’clock, carrying a suitcase. “I did it,” he said. “That’s that.” They made love all night long and it was just wonderful, although she made him leave very early in the morning because of her nosy neighbors—all she needed was gossip reaching the Swede landlord. The next day when he came over for lunch he told her that he and Janet had been fighting like cats and dogs all week long; she’d found a book of matches from the Parisian Casino, and although he did his best to lie—he hated to lie, even to Janet—about what he was doing in a Union City roadhouse, it wouldn’t wash. She said that she knew all about roadhouses and what went on there and what went on after people left them, and she knew what sort of women men took to those places. And then she said, and Blackie was struck dumb by it, that she knew damn well what woman
he’d
taken there and did he think she was a complete fool that she didn’t know what was going on all these weeks and with that scarf that Maureen—she said
that woman
—gave him for Christmas? A
silk scarf,
and a potted plant for the dumb little wife? Did he really take her for a complete fool? The fight went on from there, and on and on, and then it would simmer down, but start up all over again. That’s why he hadn’t been able to see his sweetie all week. He didn’t tell Maureen that he and Janet had made love before and after all the episodes of their serial quarrel, and that their lovemaking was better than it had ever been in their eleven years together, it was hot and kind of dirty. It looked as if maybe things were going to blow over for a while so that he could talk to Janet, choose his own time to leave, explain things to little Clara—but then yesterday she woke up ready for battle, started in all over again with the scarf business. She must have been lying in bed stewing about it. That scarf had really gotten under her skin and there was the old song and dance about it, silk, made in Italy, B. Altman’s, the works! And how he never gave her anything nice, he never took her anywhere, when was the last time they went out to dinner in a nice restaurant, oh Jesus God! And then she mentioned, the bitch, that maybe Maureen had also bought him his
hat,
that makes him look like an ambulance-chasing shyster. Blackie went upstairs, without a word, packed a bag, and came down to tell her that he wasn’t coming back, he’d call her. Janet yelled at him, actually she
screamed
at him that she didn’t want him to call her ever ever again and that he’d never see Clara again and that she hoped he’d die and burn in hell along with his whore. Blackie sat back on Maureen’s sofa and she patted his leg, shaking her head. She got up and brought him a cup of coffee. She was wearing a tight skirt and he reached out and touched her leg. She looked at him and smiled. “Why didn’t you
wear
your scarf, darling?” she said. He looked up at her and smiled back, his hands under her skirt, caressing her thighs. He’d looked for the scarf high and low and it hadn’t been in his closet or dresser drawers, or anywhere, and he figured that maybe Janet, she could be very mean, had thrown it out. “Thrown it out?” Maureen said, pushing at his hands and stepping back from him. “You
let
her throw it out?” Her expression was cold, her face closed and pinched. Blackie looked out the window at the cold Saturday streets, trying to think of an answer to the envenomed question. Christ, she made a really lousy cup of coffee.

Claire

D
OCTOR NAPOLEON GETS OFF THE ELEVATOR AND TELLS her that he knew that she’d come to the office, despite what he’d heard. She doesn’t know what he’d heard. “I’m Claire,” she says. “Of course,” he says, “there’s always a chance that a regimen of internal crosswords might arrest the disease. They’ve made such great advances in so many years of medicine.” He looks at
The Memoir,
which he has taken out of his pocket, and smiles. “Where’s your
friend,
the high-school boy writer? Isn’t he a little young for you?” He turns and opens a stainless steel door marked CAUTION HAZARD ENTERTAINMENT, and walks through it. She is mildly surprised to find that she is wearing nothing but her slip and a pair of paper slippers, one of which says MICKEY and the other MINNIE. Doctor Napoleon stands in front of her, his arms folded, and asks her about her offensive smoking at the party, “and by the
buffet!
That’s not a good idea with multiple myeloma. Why aren’t you in a hospital gown?” He is at the nurses’ station, talking to two nurses and shaking his head resignedly. She goes back to her room and the good-looking but boyish entertainment coordinator is sitting on the bed, smoking her last cigarette. “Oh, oh,” he says. “Caught red-handed. I surrender.” She takes her slip off because of the strict instructions she memorized while still at home, and stands at the side of the bed, in another slip, her arms held straight at her sides. He gets up and looks out the window. “They all ought to go back to Chelsea, and what the hell happened to
that
neighborhood? You too!” She gets into bed and lights a cigarette from a pack that she finds under the counterpane. He and Doctor Napoleon speak in whispers in the little bathroom, the door to which is only half-closed. “Have the other women finally left for Los Angeles?” the doctor asks. “In their New York clothes? They were supposed to wear their hospital gowns!” She puts her cigarette out and lights another, then offers the pack to Doctor Napoleon and the entertainment coordinator, who, she realizes, is a young black man whose name is Ferlon Grevette. This surprises her for she knows that young black men never get sick enough to go to the hospital. “You’re very bald,” she says to him. She gets off the bed, straightens and smooths her skirt, tucks in her blouse, and steps into her new pumps. But she can’t open the door, even though it has no lock. She turns, in tears, to Doctor Napoleon. Her blouse has fallen open and her breasts are exposed. “The door,” she says. “I’m dying and the door’s closed. Am I?” “It’s time for some entertainment,” Doctor Napoleon says, but Ferlon Grevette has left. “Let’s get into that gown now, Claire, shall we?” Doctor Napoleon says, smiling foolishly. “Your breasts are beautiful, but multiple myeloma doesn’t care.” He begins to eat his stethoscope. “Licorice,” he says. “One of my little jokes to lighten things up a bit.” “That’s in
The Memoir
,” Claire says, pulling her slip on.

Another Story

DEAR CLARA,

I
’M SENDING YOU THIS CARE OF KATY, HOPING YOU’LL GET IT and read it and think about the terrible step you took. Walking out. I couldn’t believe it when I got home that night from my sales trip, to find you gone with all your clothes and things gone and not to let me explain or talk to you was also a slap in the face, believe you me. And not to even let me see little Maureen before you left if you thought you had to leave, what can she be thinking in her innocent mind? I know you’ll be mad as you are usually when I mention your mother but, I blame her for this and your father too had a hand in it, since he does as he’s told, and they were always jealous of our happiness. I know I made a mistake with Janet but it was one mistake, and, no matter what you may believe or were
told,
it was only one. And to just throw away our marriage for this, do you think it’s right? I’m sure you were hurt or, I should say I know you were hurt because it was adding insult to injury that Janet, was a guest in our house many times and adored Maureen. I know it was wrong of her and she also knows this. And it was wrong of me of course, but it was that one time and I thought you and I had settled it about the motel that was completely innocent and was about business if you remember. I can’t be any sorryer than I was after the mistake I made as I told you when I got down on my hands and knees and begged for your forgiveness. But why did you just leave while I was away so that we did not have a chance to sit down and talk things over for as long as you liked. It was a complete surprise and the kind of behavior that is not like
you
at all, if you take my meaning.

Now I hear from Ralph that you’ve gone to see Connie Moran and I can only think that the only reason you’d go and see that ambulance chaser is about a legal separation? When I think about how you and I laughed and laughed about that time he rushed over to Lutheran Hospital and it turned out he spent an hour talking to the wrong accident victim. Well that was in the past, now, I guess you think about him differently. If it is about a separation I wonder who will be paying his fee or retainer? As if I didn’t know! Your mother never liked me from the start and hated that we were making a go of it, no thanks to her and your father. She must have been happy as a clam to find out that we were having our ups and downs which, I know you told her about, although I begged you not to tell her our private marittal business. For instance, Clara, there was no need for your mother to know about that little slip of mine. I know it won’t cut any ice if I tell you that Janet is not my secretary any more, but has left and is working for another firm. And anyway I have never had a word to say to her since that one mistake, that was not in the line of business, for six months. That important company shindig that I was supposed to go to a couple of months ago that might well have led to a raise and promotion I didn’t go to, as you know. I remember you even argued with me about my refusal to go, you said it would be good for my future with the company. Now the reason I didn’t go can now be told. It was because I knew that Janet would probably be there with Jack Walsh, who was her boss before she left the firm for the other job I just mentioned. The long and the short of it was that
I did not want
to jepoardize our marriage that looked like it was getting back on its feet especially, after that weekend we spent in the Poconos, that was like a second honeymoon. Do you remember your mother and father did everything they could to keep us from going? Including not being able to mind Maureen because of your father’s sudden attack of a bilious headache that just came out of the blue? I never knew your father to suffer from anything except maybe too many boilermakers, as you yourself have agreed with me about many a time. But that’s all water under the bridge and I don’t want to point fingers.

Ralph also mentioned that you’ve been getting advice from Pastor Ingebretsen, who is, for my money, a regular creeping Jesus, along with that skeleton of a wife of his and her knitting club, spelled GOSSIP. For God’s sake, Clara, call me or call Ralph or Anna. I know that I’ll never get you if I leave a message with your mother or father. Maybe we can meet and have lunch or a cup of coffee even, and talk everything out. I look in your empty closet and my heart feels as if it’s going to break, can you really throw away eleven years of marriage because I made a stupid mistake just once and never did again, as God is my Judge. And that, as I told you, happened because I had a little too much to drink at the salesman of the year party for Bill Greenleaf, and in a way I have to take all the blame and I cannot in all honesty even blame Janet who I really took advantage of. Though you think she is loose or even a little tramp, she is just a kid who had one too many too that evening and I lost my head. So please call me, or Ralph. I know it’s not important since I know how hurt and angry you must be, but I brought home from Chicago a little present for you that I thought you would really like, something you’ve wanted for a long time. And for my darling Maureen, a doll with three complete outfits that cries and wets, she will love it. I would love to give it to her.

Please, please call. I love you and do not want to lose you. I will even talk to your mother and father if you want me to and if they will let me, although our marriage is none of their business. Do you remember that’s why we moved out to Rego Park so that we could live our lives without having them drop in on us whenever they felt like it, and being hurt and angry if we so much as hinted that we wanted to be by ourselves for a change. You were even more fed up with it than I was. But I will talk to them if you wish it, my dearest wife, I will crawl if that’s what they want.

Please get in touch with me, and please believe me that I have had nothing to do with Janet for months, actually, I never did except for that one terrible mistake that I made by giving in to temptation, that was only human.

Your loving husband,

Ray

Lovers

I
’VE KNOWN IRENE GREENLEAF FOR A LONG TIME, SINCE the year that she and Bill were engaged, in fact. After they separated and then divorced over Bill’s affair with Charlotte, his secretary—whom he married soon after—Irene and I had a brief romance, if one can call it that, but we’ve been no more than friends for almost thirty-five years now. As if having an unfaithful husband wasn’t enough, her brother, a true deadbeat, who gambled away every penny he got his hands on, was beaten to death outside Papa Joe’s, a real bucket of blood, patronized by drunk lowlifes like the brother, whose name I forget, a small blessing. It would have been poetic justice had he been killed over a bad debt, but the fight apparently began with a shouting argument as to the relative merits of Rocky Graziano and Tony Zale. Perfect. In any event, Irene has lately become depressed, very obviously so, about Bill and Charlotte, which seems absolutely crazy, considering the lifetime that has elapsed since their initial dalliance. I don’t ever bring it up, nor does Irene, but it’s been clear to me for years—it was clear to me at the time—that our long-ago sexual fling, an expression, I grant you, even more stupid than “brief romance,” was simply Irene’s reaction to Bill’s infidelity, his cold and sudden abandonment of her. As far as I know, Bill was the only man that Irene had ever gone to bed with, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the first time was on their wedding night. I flatter myself that I may be the only other man she favored. At any rate, what I’m trying to get at is that Irene’s thoughts have never been far from Bill, and over the years she has shown an obsessive interest in him and Charlotte, an unhealthy interest, as they say, although I’ve never used that expression with her. This interest has become much more pronounced in recent months. The whole thing has not been helped by the fact that Bill and Charlotte live in a house in the old neighborhood, a house that Bill bought soon after their marriage. Irene still has many friends, gossips all, in the neighborhood, who have been and still are more than happy to report on Bill, Charlotte, and their three children: Irene and Bill, you may have guessed, had no children together. As I’ve said, Irene has seemed increasingly depressed, more stagnant, may be the word, and shows very little interest in anything, including her monthly trips to Atlantic City, sometimes with me, sometimes with one or another of her gossipy friends, to play the slots, drink Margaritas, and eat steaks. I knew that something was
really
wrong one night when we were sitting on her couch watching a television show, one of those in which actors who resembled large pieces of lumber moved spastically about to surges of hysterical laughter—this is the sort of show Irene watches lately, her face frozen. I suddenly felt her breath on my cheek, then her tongue in my ear, and at the same moment, she caressed me between my legs. I pulled my head away, turned and looked at her, and said something, God knows what, and she began to cry, but stopped almost immediately. We finished watching the manic show, watched another, and then I went home. We had said nothing about the brief aberration. A couple of weeks later, Irene, still quite low, but now on antidepressants that safely maintained her unhappiness, told me, over whiskey sours in a quiet new bar a few blocks from her apartment, that she had almost committed suicide a month earlier; she’d bought a bottle of a hundred Advils, a bottle of Nytol, and a liter of vodka, but changed her mind. Maybe that’s why, she said, that I, you know, that night on the couch? I nodded, then started to say something vapidly positive, life is sweet, is precious, is worth living, is a bowl of cherries, but she touched my hand and looked at me and I knew enough to shut up. She had gone, she said, to Our Lady of Perpetual Help at least twice a week for the past five years, to light a candle each time and to pray for the agonizing deaths of Bill and his whore and their three rotten children. I thought, idiotically, that she didn’t even know the children, and stared at her glass as she took a sip of her whiskey sour. Five years, she said, five fucking years, and nothing
happened.
Her face was flushed and distorted with anger and pain. Five years and they’re all fine, they’re all hale and hearty! I was smiling irreverently. Can you, she said, lighting a cigarette, get a goddamn ashtray for
Christ’s
sweet sake in this bar?