Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (58 page)

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

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

R.

Dearest Ralph –-

At home downstairs – a change, like al the
many changes within me and around me. Skullcap of black madness
playing ninepins with despair/ennui. Haven’t moved much since I
returned home. Go through the motions – back to the schedules that
spare thinking, occasional flashes of wit, sardonic, without soul.
Look at the order around me that is becoming me and grieve that I’m
powerless to stem the tide.

A week ago we said goodbye and tried in 15
minutes alone to undo the anxieties of the past week. Not enough
time. I sit here facing north. You are souh, behind me, shrouded in
heavy silence. That silence was beginning before I came down for
reasons neither of us could begin to explain. I do love you. That
may not be enough. We came to the place where we saw each other
without all the intervening variables. Saw what each of us would
need, require from the other. Perhaps love is not enough. Terribly
sad, my darling. Wish like hell you would simply communicate what
you are feeling. See these notes as pieces fluttering off into
space too late to find you, too late.

Have fallen into a quiet existence. Patient
without patience. Waiting for Godot, I think. Maggie and I trooped
to the Flame last Friday and talked to people for a while. No heart
for it. Bill had kicked Kathy out of the house again, so she spent
Friday night with me. Sat around Saturday and stoned ourselves to
death. Then did a dinner shot. Just too sad. Left Kathy with Maggie
and came home. Haven’t been out since. Maggie, if I haven’t told
you, has fallen love, head over heels. She spoke with Crumley last
week and advised him not to wait for her to become more amenable to
their rejoining. Still won’t predict the outcome of any of this; o
much has passed between them that was too painful. Time may not be
able to smooth the differences and currently that is about all they
have going for them. I love them both dearly. Just more sadness. I
know you thought Crumley was just another macho-man, but he is so
much more than that stance he lets himself slip into. He is a
wonderful, but so very complex man.

Soaked in a bubblebath for what seemed like
hours today. Just kept running more hot water. Lay there and tried
to let my head rest. But the perfidious mind always found something
I didn’t want to think about and the stomach knotted up again. I
can see why people become alcoholics. It doesn’t simplify life, but
for the moment it makes it tolerable. I was very nervous last
night, a true case of the willies. Think tension also relates to
ennui. I had secured some MDA. It’s a mild hallucinogenic. Haven’t
taken any of that stuff since my dopey married days. Was told this
stuff would have a calming effect. So I locked my doors, turned on
the TV to the Miss U.SA. pageant and dropped it. It was mild
indeed. Could watch that absolute shit on TV and feel anger and
feel it was dispassionate anger. About the only real effects were a
floating sensation, occasional blurring of vision, and a real
distance from reality, which was something I needed in the worst
way.

Kathy had a rather mild misadventure lately
which might amuse you. Her life does follow certain patterns. Kathy
has recently made the acquaintance of a Math department oddball by
the name of Fred, who has apparently fallen in love with her and
follows her around bar to bar, from bike route to asparagus patch.
Fred has just learned to “swing,” I guess, for he was not sighted
until a month or so ago and now can be found any given night of the
week at the Flame. He calls Kathy constantly at home. Bill doesn’t
take him that seriously but has finally gotten a bit miffed about
all that. Says he doesn’t like the guy’s audacity. The other night
Fred told Kathy that Bill’s infidelity is known throughout
Missoula. Guess he thinks that if that is true, Kathy will be
willing also. Anyway, she literally trips over him every time she
turns around. And, the other night, at the height of debauch, she
took off with him to see his small home away from home (he is
married, of course), and to get stoned. She said she got horribly
nauseous on the ride over to his hideaway, probably owing to the
virulent combination of tequila and orange juice and very heavy
dope. So, just as they pull up in front of his little bungalow, who
else but our Buffalo Bill roars up behind them in his car, beating
the horn, yelling out the window. Bill jumps out and begins banging
on poor little Fred’s car. They barely had time to roll the windows
up and lock the doors. Fred is gesturing wildly through the window
and trying to tell Bill he has the wrong idea, that everything is
really on the up and up, that he has no designs on Kathy
whatsoever. Bill just continues roaring and ignores Fred, of
course, and he keeps circling the car banging on it with his fists.
Bill finally needs a breather, so he stretches out on the car hood
and announces that he will wait them out, that sooner or later they
will have to come out of the car and at that point he plans to
choke them. Kathy tried to convince Fred just to keep his cool,
that sooner or later Bill would pass out, and then they could make
a getaway. Fred doesn’t buy into this and he is absolutely
terrified. He begins to babble a mile a minute. At that point Kathy
feels very ill, so she leans over the backseat and lets heave, just
does it, all over the back floor. Fred doesn’t say a thing about
it, he just keeps babbling about Bill and being too young to die,
and Kathy swears that now and again poor Fred would break into a
few, assorted Hail Marys and scat a few lines of the Lord’s Prayer.
This goes on for a time, Kathy now and then tosses her cookies into
the back seat and Fred prays with a true passion for deliverance,
until Kathy can hear Bill snoring. She then jumps out of Fred’s car
and bolts back to Bill’s (he had left it running naturally) and
roars off into the night. How or when Bill got home (or whatever
happened to poor Fred) she doesn’t know. But she found Bill asleep
in the front bushes the next morning when she went out to get the
paper. Also, Bill didn’t seem to remember a thing about it, for not
a word has been said on the subject. Nobody has seen Fred at the
Flame since, so his swinging days must be over.

Enough. Enough. And what is to become of us?
Where are you? What are you doing? What happened to us on my visit?
We did have some wonderful moments, I cannot deny that. There were
sweet, close moments when we were as intense and tender as ever.
But the underlying fears and sadness, the unspoken things between
us. And the booze frightened me like it hasn’t done before. And I
can’t believe I got so upset when I saw how untidy you are. I think
what happened is that I realized how much Alice Ann takes care of
you, how much she must mother you. And it frightens me that perhaps
I can’t do that, not the way she must anyway. There are just so
many things I don’t understand. Calvin rides my shoulders again. We
have violated laws, my love. We had no right to do that. Now we
violate each other. Christ, I am so sad. I am as sad as when Alice
Ann’s two dozen roses arrived for me, the other woman.

Will promise you a very few things. Believe
you maybe as confused as I am, and know both of us need time to
sort things through. I will wait for word from you, however long it
takes for you to speak your mind truthfully. I will not write to
you again. You don’t need my confusions to clutter your thoughts
and you don’t need to feel responsible for my present state. I
believe I have put myself in this place – my head, my heart. And,
like you, I’m a survivor. Will return the books and mss. you sent
me shortly. Don’t feel I can keep them here. No consolation for
your absence.

Take care, my love. For you have been my
love. I will always, always cherish our times together. Something
very special in my life, something I will never be without – the
memories. Forgive these words. So impotent bedside the way I feel.
Again, take care of yourself. Please.

L.

Dearest Madame Lindsey …

Just ready your letter. Just had mailed you
a letter. Got terribly drunk last night, and sad, sad, Jesus. Tom
Zigal, Stark, Max Carver, Mike Rogers, Kinder, the usual worthless,
drunken crew. Somehow ended up at a commie-Black Panther
meeting/rally of some sort, at some commie Stanford professor’s
house (Max is a serious commie, as I told you. He claims to know
where guns and even bodies are buried.). Anyway, it developed into
a crazy, even dangerous scene, with Stark almost getting into it
with some monster Black panther sort, after Stark went around
saying he was as liberal as the next chickenshit Stanford professor
and believed that there should be at least two watermelons in every
motherfucker’s garage, or something like that. Somehow Max got us
out alive. Crazy, and hilarious, but deep down I felt so sad, no
amount of laughter could touch that darkness. Am aware of a great
hole in my life – trying not to fall off backwards into it. Can’t
believe that what we shared is not to be again. The Ralph and the
Lindsey. Here I am, sitting here in this office, this overgrown
office, which I have all to myself now, remembering when you came
up to meet me for lunch that day. Remember? Said I wanted to make
love to you right there and then. On top of the desk. On the floor.
I was only half-joking. I wish with all of my heart we had done it,
made love. So here I sit, writing this on the fly between students,
trying to make the afternoon mail. Should be up there with you or
you here with me and me looking so forward to getting off work,
getting back, getting home, to you. What the hell happened to those
days, those nights, that Lindsey. And, no, I don’t believe we
violated any laws, unwritten or otherwise, and that now we have to
pay for it. Huh-uh. But I’m a fellow short on philosophy -- that’s
a fact – but long on feeling. I’m sorry things scared you so much,
all the anxiety. I’m sorry Alice Ann found out about you being here
with me. And those cursed flowers, those damn roses. Why she did
that I don’t know. And I’m sorry I was so untidy. If we were
together I would do better, really. But don’t make more of it than
there is. Sure I’m used to Alice Ann picking up after me, but that
doesn’t mean she mothers me, that I’ve gotten so used to her I
can’t do things on my own, that she has been my main support and
buffer against the hard realities of this world, all that just
because I’m a slob, which I am the first to admit. I washed the
dishes last night, let me tell you, or maybe it was the night
before. But I made up my bed this morning, and yesterday morning
too. And I intend to do it again tomorrow. I’m going to tidy up my
life and keep it tidy too, I’m here to tell you. Must and will see
you again, little fish. And you must not think of sending back to
me my books or mags. of mine that I’ve given you. Couldn’t bear
that. Don’t even speak of it. I love you so much, little fish. I
love you, you. Told you once that I thought I could never love
again. It happened. Lindsey. Lindsey and Ralph. Well, I don’t want
to sound maudlin, or whatever, and, besides, someone is at the
door. And I have this rotten class to teach. Must go. Please write
again. I’ll send you the money I owe you the day after tomorrow.
And that is a promise. Take are. All love.

R.

Dearest Ralph ___

I just can’t tell you how happy I was to get
your letter today. I have been terribly unhappy – the kind of state
where nothing matters. It hurts to get up in the morning. Can’t
sleep at night. And the most violent nightmares. How to describe
them. Confrontations with the devil, cats changing into horrid,
rubbery ghouls. Woke up screaming one night. So frightened I got
out of bed, went to the john and was afraid to flush the toilet.
Wend downstairs, turning on every light in the house. Sure this
time I was going made and I didn’t want to. That’s why the
schedules I wrote about last letter and couldn’t really explain,
how somehow they kept me sane, with something to do right before
me, not having to think. My god, Ralph. Just unable to bear the
idea that I would never be with you again. And I had created the
tension, broken faith with our love.

These past two weeks without you have been
more than I thought I could bear. No one to talk to about it. Kathy
knew I was depressed, knew it was becase of you, but someone else
just can’t know how much I love you. Spent weekends here in the
livingroom, looking out through the curtains at lives passing in
the street. Felt 80. Felt alone. Felt ready to call it a life and
let it go. But knew prison has no mercy – I still had 50 years to
go. Alone in some apartment in some city behind curtains with just
the memory of a love to taunt me. I know this is maudlin. I can’t
help it. Crying now for the pain I’ve caused you and me. In mad
moments I imagined throwing all my gear in the car and driving down
to Berkeley, but was afraid I might not find you there, or might
find you there, already into another life which had no place for
me.

Would like to explain in greater honesty why
I think things were so difficult between us. It really wasn’t your
fault, love. I mean, the things I mentioned, the heavy boozing,
even the untidineass, as silly as that sounds, and the feeling of
being the other woman, with everything being topped off by Alice
Ann‘s two dozen red roses, all these things did take their toll, of
course they did. They had to. But something else was wrong. I can’t
tell you how much I’ve needed you in the past weeks, months. I have
needed you terribly, terribly, at times. I wanted to talk to you,
have you hold me, have you reassure me. There was another man. Not
an affair, I promise you. But he is somewhat older than us, very
wealthy, and his life was not complicated in the way each of ours
has been, and he seemed very wise in ways I am not, and he was very
interested in me. I liked him. I didn’t and don’t love him. But he
presented contrasts to me – not in words, not intentionally. Just
his way of life, which seemed so much easier than ours. When I
would call you for reassurance, I found none. Instead you needed me
to reassure you, and I was so confused about everything I felt my
words were false, that I was betraying you because I was not nearly
as strong as you would believe. By the time I arrived in Berkeley I
was in the midst of a giant upheaval. I just wanted you to hold me,
as though I were a child, perhaps, and promise me that we would
make it, that we would find our easy life together. You were
ill-prepared for that, my love. There I was in a strange town, in a
strange old car that whooped and bucked worse than my own heap,
neither of us had any money. And I grew more desperate, more
frightened. The more anxious I became, the more anxious you became.
There seemed no way to stop it all, slow it down and catch a
breath, see each other really and know that our love was what was
most important. The days shot by, there went our time, and all the
drinking we did, you half drunk half the time, or me, us. Not an
ideal setting for dealing with us. And when everything was topped
off with Alice Ann’s flowers, that stoke of absolute genius on her
part and when I had to drive you up to that wretched place, that
farm for drunks, and leave you there, so broken and frightened and
sad, and had to drive that bucking old car back to Berkeley alone
and absolutely terrified that it was going to blow up at any moment
and then I had to get myself to the airport alone, terrified that I
wouldn’t even have enough money for the cab, all these things just
overwhelmed me. I was absolutely undone by all that business. And
as I took that sad early flight out, I began to speculate that
perhaps it was better that we did separate – that life together
would be far more difficult than life apart.