In Stages

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In Stages

She tried to swing. I held her wrist until her face turned red and her knuckles went white.

“You’d better be careful. I’m pretty strong. I’ll give you a good bruise. And I bite too.”

I loved her hair. Shiny and dark. It was the first thing I went for whenever we were playing. It would slither between my fingers. Sometimes I’d pull it and her face would wrinkle.

“At times I think you hate me.”

“That’s stupid.”

“No, it’s all right to both love somebody and hate them too.”

“Thanks for the blessing. But it’s still stupid.”

Margret was wearing a man’s white t-shirt. It stuck to her back. I don’t know why she had to wear it when I was over. Her sweatpants were down on her hips. Her hair was disheveled. It looked like she had undergone shock treatments. I was guilty. We had been playing and had just come up for air.

Dennis was working. He was off somewhere in his cruiser patrolling Bellingham, and I couldn’t relax. Sometimes he’d come over at night. There were lots of noises outside. More than you’d imagine.

“Why do you hang around with me?”

“I feel really good when we’re together. I don’t when we’re not.”

She thought, smiled, and said, “ditto.”

It was warm in her room. I had my shirt off and I was still sweating. She was lying motionless. She had been up and down all night. It was like cuddling a jack-in-the-box.

“You’re supposed to be sick. Remember. Why don’t you lie back and rest?”

“I love Woody Allen’s line,” she said, choosing to ignore my sensible advice. “Relationships are like fish. They’ve got to keep moving forward or they die.”

A car door closed, and she shot to the window in one spasm. It wasn’t him. It never was.

“This can’t be good for my heart.” And she returned to bed.

“Tell me about it.” My heart settled onto the pillow. All momentum was lost again.

“I should send you home…”

My shoes were in one corner. My shirt in the other. My socks were near the head of the bed. I didn’t want to go now. I felt cold. Suddenly I felt foolish lying there half-dressed.

“…but you feel so warm and nice next to me.”

I was back again.

Tell him to go. Make him leave. Say goodbye. (I was never that good.)

We were making out. I had my hand beneath her shirt. She closed her eyes.

“Ooh God. Hormones.”

The television was on over her shoulder. Another night time soap opera trying to be drama. She loved them. They bored me. I watched T.V. when I was tired of kissing. She created action, nibbling my ear until I pecked her cheek. She whispered like she had conquered, “I guess it’s safe to say there’s no dead fish here.”

A car came down the road and she was out of bed and before the window again. She peeled back the corner of the shade; looked upon the street, and the empty cars, and the street lights spotlighting the asphalt. It was exasperating.

The bedroom was a greenhouse: the pipes chimes and the heat was sultry. I felt drowsy. I watched television and swallowed spoonfuls of Haagen Dasz ice cream.

What if he showed? My legs were stiff and I felt lethargic. I didn’t want to think about it. It was stupid. He never came.

“I feel really lousy going behind Dennis’ back.”

“Me too.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”

I kept my mouth shut.

“Sometimes you make me angry. I get the feeling that you’re always selling yourself to me.”

I wonder why. My spoon was turning the ice cream into milk.

Margret and I had an on-again, off-again relationship. Sometimes it’d fall apart on a weekly basis. But making up was our specialty.

Dennis was part of our relationship even though Margret didn’t understand the correlation “they” had on “us.” Their relationship was described as a “dead fish,” but she viewed it as a dependable dead fish. Our relationship was new and uncertain. Could it ever be anything more? I was beginning to wonder.

“I’ve never been pleased that you see him. Or that you sleep…”

“I’m not here for you pleasure.”

Obviously. I undercut her tone. “That’s too bad. I try to make you happy. I’d hope you’d want to do the same.”

It surprised her. She smiled, came back to bed and ran her fingers through my hair. “You know sometimes you got a pretty cute streak.”

“I’m not cute! Smurfs are cute. I’m not.” I placed the ice cream back on the night table.

Like an afterthought she added, “If you want something more why don’t you offer it?”

The vision of her, ever possibly having a child and asking the court to grant “three party custody” was too unsettling to take her seriously.

“Why don’t you,” I asked.

She started to speak, hesitated, and hurried back to the window. I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes. Damn him. He was everywhere. He was an uninvited guest in my life.

“He’s here,” Margret announced breathlessly.

I shot to my feet, as surprised as if Dennis was materializing within the room. The location of my belongings were lost in the transition.

“Oh God. He’s here. I don’t believe this is happening…”

I didn’t find it quite as unbelievable. Below he was whistling as he came up the drive. Above we were rampaging through Margret’s room erasing the evidence. Margret’s anxiety calmed me.

“Do you want me to get the door?”

“You’ve got to leave.”

“How?”

Margret was close to crying. The alarm clock at the side of the bed was: tick, tick ticking away the seconds we had to come up with the solution.

“Go down the backstairs. Hurry.”

The bell rang. I buttoned my shirt. I had a vision: a gun beneath a police jacket…bang, bang…

…and bounced over the bed like a hurdler and gunned me my shocks like a shortstop in the hole. I hated her for doing this.

We went through the front hall and into the kitchen. Downstairs the landlord was sleep, unknowingly. In the next room her roommate was asleep. Would Armageddon wake them?

The doorbell rang again. We didn’t exchange a word. I was escorted past the stove, the water bubbler, the table, the clock, all familiar friends. All asking, why does Gar have to leave?

I wondered if our relationship was designed to be a threat that Margret hoped to change Dennis with. Or if not, I was supposed to supplement his shortcomings. I heard her mock-gruff voice, slashing and teasing, repeating my break-up lines “don’t ever call or write me again.” Like I’d always need her.

And I heard me answering, maybe, maybe we are breaking up. We’re just doing it in stages.

I turned, “this has to be settled. This is crap.”

She wasn’t going to argue now. “You’ve got to leave,” and she kissed my cheek and hoped that I wouldn’t make a scene. I went down the backstairs.

“The door’s right at the bottom,” she called and I heard the door close behind me. I was left between her walls. The second shift was waiting out front, and down below.

In the dark I could hear the floor boards shifting. It sounded like code. What were they talking about? How would he react? And why did someone, whose swore they loved you, treat you like this?

Upstairs, her face was whiter than her t-shirt, her hair was a mess and he’d know as soon as he looked at her.

Downstairs, I had bypassed the door and was stumbling around a dark basement. At any moment I expected to kick over a shovel, or to bang my shins on a folding tray, or to spill a length of hose, or to whack my head on a pipe.

What if the cops came? What if the landlord came? What if Dennis came? Everything was surreal. I was living a story bawdier that the Miller’s tale in the Canterbury Tales.

I had to decide what to do. Every option seemed wrong and the results were permanent. If I tried to escape out a window, the landlord might hear, think that there was a robber in the basement, and phone the police. I’d have a lot to explain. Then when I told the truth, I’d find out how far Margret was prepared to sell me out. I felt nauseous.

I waited for something to happen…it didn’t…I saw myself, all night, waiting…in the dark. Waiting…cold, hungry and paralyzed. Waiting…to be found. Waiting… through the most miserable night of my life.

I wanted to go upstairs, bang loudly on the door and say, “hi, how you all doing? Remember me?”

I remembered a door I had passed on my flight downstairs. I headed back upstairs turned the knob and I was free. Why was I worried? In retrospect my escape seemed simple.

I snuck through the back yard, shivering because I’d left my coat in the car. Maybe the landlord was watching from his unlit windows as we continued with our re-enactment of the Keystone Cops. Margret was the ring master and how I envied Dennis. At least he didn’t know how ridiculous all of us looked.

I had reached the side of the house and prepared to cross the front yard. I saw his cruiser idling in the driveway. Margret had to keep Dennis from the window and also not let him leave. She had to steer him into the middle of the house. How long would she give me? Timing was critical.

I dashed for the street, my hands fumbling with my keys. I fought the door open, fell into my seat and only then did I breathe.

It was late Tuesday and I knew Dennis was over. I wished Margret would call. I missed her intensely.

It was hard to fathom why so many positives added up to an impassible negative. She had become my best friend and when she wasn’t around the void seemed as wide as the Grand Canyon and as dark as the Black Hole of Calcutta.

I didn’t like the person I was becoming. I was filled with fury just thinking about the black and white that had been in her driveway. She’d always list my choices so rationally. “You can…or you can leave because I might not be able to provide the things you want now.” Her calmness made me angrier.

I knew what I had to do. I was shy in the face of a long haul…like a trip to detox. I wasn’t sure I had the courage yet, but I’d find a way. I picked up the phone and began to dial…

First publish Minnesota Ink Novemeber/December 1990