James Ellroy (14 page)

My riposte was, I never cheated on you. Helen’s riposte was, It doesn’t matter—it’s all in your head anyway.

Fall ’03. The dream house and coastal rainstorms. Helen’s hurt and rage. Helen’s open-union offer. My antennae twitching—no, not just yet.

We got a new bull terrier and named her Margaret. She instantly swooned for Helen and evinced outrage for me. Margaret followed me through the pad, barking and growling. Margaret’s outrage remains, to this day.

I couldn’t get past Helen’s grief. I couldn’t repent or atone. My old shtick crashed and burned. Helen rebuffed my vows with shrugs. I drove around Carmel and blasted Beethoven. I sat in espresso joints and watched women. I hurled myself at my office couch every night. I prayed for Helen and Margaret and asked God for signs. I crammed myself into plush upholstery and tried to will sleep.

’03 into ’04. The dream house, the separate lives, the feminist/separatist hound.

I wrote three novellas to fill out a collection. They were sadly comedic. They detailed a fucked-up cop in love with a big-time actress. The cop narrated the stories from heaven. He was waiting for the woman, but he didn’t want her to die.

The big cosmic joke. My life’s trajectory, retold for laffs.

I always get what I want. It comes slow or fast and always costs a great deal. I have honed the conjurer’s art with an astonishingly single-minded precision.

A friend asked me to give a speech at Cal Davis. I knew She’d be there.

I said, “You remind me of someone.”

She said, “Tell me about her.”

“I never spoke to her.”

“Why?”

“I was afraid to.”

“Why?”

“I was a child. I was ashamed of the thoughts I’d been having.”

“What was she like?”

“She was a fine person.”

“How do you know that, if you never spoke to her?”

“I spent a lot of time watching her.”

“Was that a common childhood practice of yours?”

“Yes.”

“And it remains one?”

“Yes.”

“What was the girl’s name?”

“I don’t know, but I named her Joan.”

The lectern was raised, the room was packed, I had a slay-the-audience view. She sat at the left rear. I caught her gray-streaked hair first. She expanded and filled my frame. Two hundred people receded.

I read from
My Dark Places
. I brain-spoke to the woman at pause points. I described the wish-named Joan and stated the resemblance. The woman was skeptical—college prof up for a fight.

May 28, ’04. Sacramento in a spring heat wave. The six thousandth public performance of my dead-mother act.

I was boffo. I read from pitch-perfect memory and laid down even eye contact. I had a pulpit and an eons-deep Protestant bloodline. I was the predatory preacher prowling for prey. The woman was my pivot point. I eyeball-tracked the audience and clicked back to her. She had deep brown eyes. Her features were the wish-named Joan’s, aged and age-askewed. I pondered a family resemblance. The woman laughed. It made me toss the thought.

A Q&A session followed. Two hundred sociologists—a dead-mom-tour first. A man asked me how I stage-managed grief.

I cited repetition. I cited faith and a buoyant will that sometimes swerved to obsessiveness. The man called me
glib. I brusquely rebuked him. I said she was my mother—not his. I said I’d paid the price—and he hadn’t.

The exchange sparked a rumble. I eyeball-drilled the man. He shrugged and shut up. I looked directly at the woman. She looked directly back. She asked me what different forms my mother assumed.

I swooned a little. In that moment, I
knew
.

I pointed to heaven and back down to earth. I said, She’s there and I’m here. I said other women had been known to intercede and fuck with my head.

The woman laughed. A few chuckles drifted out. I ended the gig with an elegiac quote. The folks clapped and lined up to get their books signed.

The woman stood behind them and moved toward me in small steps. She got closer and eclipsed the prophecy. Her features became hers alone. She distorted then and now and blitzed iconography. I thanked her for her question and asked her her name.

She said, Joan, and stated her surname. My legs shook. I asked her if she’d like to have a drink later. She said, Assuredly, yes.

Sacramento was the first Joan Zone. It was three hours northeast of Carmel and always swamp hot. It was full of pols and lobbyists sucking the state-government tit. There were hayseed and rock-and-roll contingents. Sacramento always vexed me. That first night was a ghoul show. I got to the lobby bar early. People booze-effused and walked through with cocktails. They were dog-den crashers. I was tensed up to fight or run. First-date portent: I must contain Joan within a public place.

•    •    •

She showed on time. She’d changed clothes: summer dress to skirt/boots ensemble. Her arms were bare. She had a tattoo on her right bicep. First-date apostasy: I fucking
dug
it.

We arranged chairs beside a table. It was semi-private. I guzzled coffee as Joan sipped scotch. She left lipstick prints on her tumbler. It should have instilled a preacher’s kid fury. It didn’t. First-date apostasy #2.

She’d read my books and knew some of my story. I supplanted it and laid in a first-date rationale. My wife and I were headed for Splitsville. Divorce was a fait accompli. It was set for an indeterminate date. Helen and I had our deal in the meantime.

I was disingenuous, verging on mendacious. My relationship with Helen was tortuous and open-ended. My life was a daily process of atonement. I could not conceive of a life without Helen Knode. I started double-dealing Joan at the outset. I wanted Helen for companionship and the long shot of sex resurrected. I wanted Joan for her flaming expression of selfhood.

We talked. I got Joan a second scotch. She barely touched it. Not a juicehead—good.

Monologues followed. Joan went first. She was from New York City. Her bloodline was left-wing/Jewish. Mom and dad were divorced. Dad was a college professor and mom was a shrink. She’d been partially raised in a commune. She had a brother in San Francisco. She’d matriculated at Cornell—Helen’s alma mater. She had two master’s degrees. She was teaching at Cal Davis and was earning her doctorate.

She’d knocked around a lot. She’d pitched some left-wing woo-woo. She’d spent time in the radical women’s movement and the punk-rock scene.

I asked her what
punk rock
meant—that shit had slid by
me. Joan called it a rebuttal to Ronald Reagan. I said that I disliked rock and roll and greatly admired Reagan.

It was a test. Joan more than passed it. She smiled and said, That’s okay. She picked up my left hand and dropped it in her lap. She laced up our fingers and contained
me
.

I wondered how we looked together. The age/style gap scorched me. I was bald and a foot taller. I felt awkward. I wore a pink polo shirt and wheat jeans.

My monologue followed. I mentioned the crack-up and fresh sobriety. Joan bluntly stated that open-union deals don’t work—she’d been through it.

Her jaw was wide. Her mouth connoted harshness and determination. Her smile undermined a seething grievance. A raucous-kid aspect simmered. She knew when to deploy it. She inhabited moments intensely and performed and observed them in concurrence. She was the most stunning woman I had ever seen
.

I moved my hand to her knee. I floated someplace. We exchanged phone numbers and addresses. We had some silent spells.

I thanked God for bringing Joan to me. I counted the runs in her black stockings.

The ride home was swervy. I drove too fast and played Beethoven in murmurs and crescendos. I sent Joan flowers and a note en route.

Boomerang car: I zoomed south and whooshed north with equal force.

Helen was out. Margaret growled and retreated to Helen’s bedroom. I checked my office phone machine. Joan’s name was on the display.

Her message began, “Hey, it’s Joan.” She continued and thanked me for the flowers. Her voice was softer than it had
been the night before. I caught some Brooklyn in her vowels. A few upward tones implied gratitude. She invited me to call her.

I played the message 30-odd times. I memorized every word and every inflection. I don’t know how long I cried. It was bright daylight when I started and full night when I stopped.

The Joan Zone, the Knode Abode, three hours between sites. The civil contract that made it okay.

It began with phone calls and letters. The house was large and permitted privacy. I snagged the mail every day. My office was sealed off. Helen rarely walked through. Margaret
stormed
through and barked her outrage. I conducted the courtship sans disruption and overt lies.

It felt exhilarating and wrong. It was a second-to-second Joan-to-Helen parlay. I wanted to regain Helen’s respect. I wanted to know who Joan was and what she portended. Joan was new and I was a seasoned opportunist. Opportunists ruthlessly cling to emergent imagery and people. Joan was urgently vivid. My loyalty tipped
toward
her. It made me queasy, despite the deal. I fawned around the dream house in redress. Helen acknowledged my efforts with an offhandedness shaped by her justified grudge.
I wasn’t who I said I was
. I sensed that I could never regain my stature.

Opportunists move on
. My task was to create credibility with Joan. Written words and phone calls were my métier once more. Joan became the ultimate female spirit in possession of my time alone in the dark.

Her letters were brief. They expressed her attraction to me and ridiculed the Knode-Ellroy contract. My letters described the forthcoming dissolution of the marriage. It
was preposterous. I had spent a total of two hours in Joan’s presence. I was having it both ways. I was mending fences I intended to jump. Two women got the Ellroy troika: seduce, apologize and explain.

My letters were romantic and oozed sweet intent. I FedExed them to goose the process. I was hard-selling a potential lover. I came on too strong. Joan scolded me and prompted epistolary retreat. I plumbed Joan’s character and besieged her with perceptions. I never mentioned her wish-named antecedent. Joan praised my ardor and conceded my acuity. She kept postponing rendezvous in Sacramento and Frisco. I was a dipshit bubblegummer scaling The Mountain of
Looooove
.

It was a tough climb. Joan was a tough woman. I struggled for handholds as she pried at my grip. It was exhilarating. Joan made me work. Written praise sent me summit-bound. Written rebuke kicked me back to earth. I
lived
for her voice in the dark.

Helen and Margaret retired early. My nerves were still shot. Sleep came late, if at all. Panic attacks
still
zapped me daily. Joan and I talked most nights. Her implied rule was, I’ll call when I call. I was breathless with the forfeit of male control and mindful of it as a means of seduction. I doused the lights at 9:00 p.m. I played the Chopin nocturnes and killed the sound at 9:45. Darkness held me. I heard crickets and the waves on Carmel beach. The phone rang when it rang—and almost always at 10:30.

She always said, “Hey, it’s Joan.” Her voice carried a husk and registered as mid-range contralto. I’d ask her if her hair was up or down and whether or not she was wearing her glasses. She’d say “Up” or “Down” and “Yes” or “No” with a swoopy inflection. It always pulled tears out of me. I never told her this. I was grateful for every small kindness she showed me. My gratitude was there at the start. My gratitude remains in Joan’s long-standing absence.

Our talks were affectionate and often contentious. Joan’s university status bewildered me. I didn’t quite get what she did. She provided brisk word portraits of her many friends and colleagues. My interest waned then. I wanted to milk our sex vibe and set up a face-to-face meet. Academic code deterred me. I believed that anecdotes should ping-pong between people. Joan questioned my interlocutory style. I was supposed to respond along set lines and not talk about myself so much. Academians deployed this method and balked when interlocutors ignored it. This constrained me. I wanted to wow Joan with my story. She wanted to establish parity with a storytelling pro. I came up short most times. I was bucking a woman from a different world and another generation. Our talks always got around to
us
at the phone-call finale. The road ran circuitous. Joan challenged me. I found a way to stay in the fight. I knew that I had to change. My old woman ways had decimated my marriage. Joan astounded me. I had to think and act from her perspective. It felt like film noir. The amnesiac assumes that the black-clad woman has the answers. The price was a certain submission. It rankled me. I respected Joan for her fight. I wanted to get her to an enclosed space. I wanted to tussle with her and get past words. I believed that mutual surrender would lead us someplace very
soft
.

She was left-wing, I was right-wing. She was Jewish, I was Gentile. She was an atheist, I was a believer. Her cultural influences bored me. Her punk-rock shit was jejune. Our conversations fractured and rebuilt around desire. We flabbergasted each other. She possessed a surpassing personal power. I told her this. Joan told me that my power leveled her. She hinted at a roundelay of role reversals. We always got there as we said good night. I always put the phone down, trembling.

•    •    •

I won a book prize in Italy. It entailed an a.m. flight from Frisco. I decided to spend the preceding night there. Joan agreed to meet me.

I got a suite at the Ritz-Carlton. Joan rang the bell right on time. I held her in the doorway. She found the suite constraining and suggested a stroll. Her local travelogue delighted me. The Coit Tower kiss kept me attentive. I let her walk ahead of me. She saw it as packed-street etiquette and my means to study her. She let me take charge then. I took her hand and spieled a run of kid-crime tales. She laughed and let me lead her to a restaurant. I didn’t want to eat and blitz my adrenaline rush. She understood. She studied me and reported her findings.