30 Pieces of a Novel (78 page)

did you know that?” and at the kitchen table he
drank his beer and she her tea and she said, “So, my personal thanks for sending so many nice young men to me,” and he said, “Yeah?” but must have looked surprised because she said, “Hey, hold it up. You
are
Bookbinder, the NYU guy I've been trying to reach? I haven't made a boo-boo, I hope, because that'd be mortifying. I'd have to kick you out on your keister or, if you wanted to stay, ask you for ten dollars for a shortie,” and he said, “Yeah, Robert Bookbinder, who do you think?” because he was already plenty hot. “That's good, because at first when you walked in—I don't know if you caught my expression—but I wondered, Is this really the guy I thought? But then your face got to look more familiar, just six or so months older, and at your age that can change it a lot. Because, you know, after your one time here I started getting telephone calls from fellows who said you sent them. Though I don't like doing that, seeing men who are almost kids and from a reference I wasn't altogether confident with, their voices were always too sweet and earnest over the phone to refuse, and I had you in my little book that you were okay. And right with the first young man they were all such gentlemen that I kept saying, ‘Sure, baby, you can pay me a visit,' and they kept coming, about ten of them and some of them a few times, and all using your name. So I want to reimburse your generosity, you can say, by giving you one on the house. Because I can't pay you money—I don't give commissions to anyone,” and he said, “I didn't want money. Those fellows said they were looking for a woman, so I recommended you above all,” and she said, “As I said, that's what I liked about you. You never called to ask for compensation. But tell me, how come you never came back on your own? You'd seen me once, that was enough? You should have known, even if you were prepared to pay, that I wouldn't take your money after what you did for me,” and he said, “Thanks, I've been very busy. Schoolwork, every kind of thing,” and she said, “What sort of work you do besides your school? But fill me in later. Now you're finished with your beer, let's get washed up.” He never told Robert, and once, a few months later, just to see what Robert knew and if he'd level with him, he said, “If I ever… I don't. I'm scared of getting V.D., even with a bag on. But if I ever—let's say for a friend, and the friend isn't me, believe me, though a couple of guys have asked if I knew of one—wanted to get the number of a prostitute who was fairly pretty and with a nice-enough body and didn't charge too much and lived not too far away, do you know of any or know anyone who does?” and Robert said, “What guy our age goes to a prostitute anymore? Not only because of syphilis and the rest, which you don't get if you have the bag on properly and don't kiss her genital parts, but it's the most blatant admission of being a social loser. You date, you form relationships; that's how you get laid. And if you're in a dry period, you don't get desperate. That's why I've been urging you to go to parties and fraternize more. If your friends are just whoremongers, get new ones who'll introduce you to nice intelligent women who'll eventually, if they like your company and see you're not in it just for the sex, make it with you. You've been to a prostitute—don't tell me. But if I were you I'd do everything I could to avoid them,” and he said, “You're right, once, recently. And I can say that because of her looks and dumb chatter and phlegmatic performance, it wasn't much fun before or during it, or, because of how much it cost, after,” and Robert said, “How could it be? She slaps some grease in, spreads herself wide, smells like hell from deodorants and other guys, makes with a few fake affectionate words, and after some quick jabs by you you're left with yourself forever. I'll have to start taking you to every party I go to.” He could talk to him about it now on the phone, if he's home, but that'd be like saying, “Remember Red the hooker from about forty years ago? Don't tell me you don't. Our memories are getting shot from age but every guy remembers the whores he went to, even their addresses. Hers was Seventy-first, south side of the street, four or five doors up from Columbus. Oh, boy, how you lied to me, brother. ‘Avoid whores at any cost' indeed.” But suppose someone at that time had used Robert's name with Red when he actually had had no contact with her? Never thought of that, but why would anyone do it? Come on: to get even with him for some reason or because he was jealous of him and wanted Robert to look bad, and so on. “Robert the pimp,” some guys might have thought of him as, which if he had known of it would certainly have made him mad. But it almost had to be Robert who gave her name and phone number out and probably even said, “Tell her I told you about her.” But why, because he knew she'd end up giving him a free lay, even some
money? If
Robert did go to her after Gould had, what then? It'd mean he knew all along what Gould had done. Because she probably told him when he was there, or in an elliptical way told him this over the phone when he might have called to see if any guys had gone to her by using his name, that she'd already paid him back for what he'd done for her. “What do you mean?” he could have said, and in that same elliptical way she could have continued going around it till she gave a description of the Robert Bookbinder she'd seen and something about his mannerisms and voice that matched Gould. Wouldn't Robert have mentioned it to Gould then, or sometime since? Maybe. Better he keep that can closed, he thinks. Robert often comes and stays with Gould and his family and they always have a good time; deep conversations, talk about things they did as kids, books they recently read or are reading, political things that are happening, and so on. So? So he's saying they still like to spend time together. They once hitchhiked in Europe for a month, staying in youth hostels and student houses, going from town to town, country to country, museum to cathedral to cathedral to museum. They've just about always loved each other's company. Their two families, when the kids were small, sailed across the Atlantic on the QE2 together at standby rates, ate at the same table, then rented a minibus in England and toured France for two weeks. Gould's first daughter's middle name is Roberta. Robert's son's middle name is Gould, which he's objected to. “I don't give a shit if it's after my only uncle and he's the closest person in the whole wide world other than Mom to you, what kind of name is that, Gould Bookbinder?” “It's not Gould Bookbinder,” Robert said he told his son, “it's Vincent Gould Bookbinder.” “I want it to be Vincent G. Bookbinder, and if people ask what the G's for, I'll say Gregor.” Gould, when he was in his early twenties, was dumped by a woman he'd been going with a few months. The woman and he met for lunch, she said she's started seeing someone else, that's why he hasn't been able to reach her the last two weeks, someone she knew from before and was once almost engaged to, and she'll probably marry him by the end of the year. No, the truth is, because she wants to be totally honest about this so he knows exactly where he stands, they've already made plans to get married sometime this month, that's how sudden and strong their relationship's become, and she's very sorry what this is doing to him, when Gould started to cry, but he'll get over it—he had to see their little thing together wasn't working—so please don't be so sad. He said, “Up yours,” and threw his napkin at her and left the restaurant and went straight to Robert at work. Robert said he knew how he felt, it had happened to him a couple of times, took him out for a drink, they sat at the bar and he put his arm around Gould's shoulders and said things that after a while, and another drink, made him feel better, that it's happened to almost everyone, in fact, and usually at the age Gould is now, if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't, nothing anyone can do about it, he'll meet someone soon if he keeps himself open for it, he's a terrific guy, smart and good-looking and decent and personable, and it'll be a more suitable woman, one not so quixotic and unreliable and flighty, or maybe this one will see all those fine qualities in him and change her mind, dump the other guy, or the guy might suddenly realize she was less than the ideal mate and drop her, though Robert hopes she doesn't come running back, because she's not good enough for Gould, that's all it is, but give it a few days to a week for her to call, and try not to be so sad as she said, she doesn't deserve it, and gave him a few tranquilizers—“You use them? I never would have thought”—and Robert said he just happened to have them in his book bag for a time several months ago when because of his work and love life he was under some stress, and to take three a day at eight-hour intervals and call him anytime he wants, at 4 A.M. if he needs to, and they'll speak or meet. Robert and he took care of their mother when she was very sick. Long before that they helped her take care of their father, alternated giving him his shots, took him out for strolls, changed and cleaned him and fed and shaved him and other things. They were together when their mother died. Sat alongside her bed, each holding one of her hands till the end, cried on the other's shoulder and chest after. Cleared out her apartment together. “Take whatever you want of hers, anything,” and Gould said, “You the same. You're the older one. Mom had some beautiful antiques, and I don't mean that in a funny way, coming after what I just said about you. And if all I get left with is some pots and pans, that's okay too,” and Robert said, “Good God, Gould, what do you think I am, a vulture? Whatever I want to keep of hers is in my head, so I'm taking even less than you.” He once thought if Robert died before him he'd be as sad as when his mother and father died. When his mother died he was the saddest he ever was for anything, and he'd probably be as sad as that. Wouldn't go to work for a week. That's what happened after she died: he couldn't. Hardly ate, drank himself to sleep for days. Didn't do anything in that time but the essential household tasks and take a few short walks, crying and crying. In the market the one time he went, suddenly bursting out crying. In bed at night, or sitting in the dark in front of the memorial candle he lit for her, crying. Dreaming of her every night for weeks and during his daytime naps. But then at least he had Robert to speak to on the phone, each of them saying things like “Is it as bad for you as it is for me? I know it is, but I'm just saying.” That's how he'd most likely act if Robert died before him, everything he mentioned about his mom. Now he thinks, What else would he be doing with Robert if he had lived? He'd probably call him up now and if Robert was the one who picked up the phone, he'd say, “Hi, it's me, Gould, just checking in with you and seeing how you're doing, as I've been thinking of you,” and Robert might say, “I know it's you, don't you think I recognize your voice by now, so why do you always give your name?” and he'd say, “Habit, I guess, something I do with most people—even with my wife, if you can believe it—though to my kids I always say, ‘It's Daddy,'” and they'd talk, each telling the other some of the more significant or intriguing or funny or absurd things that had happened or interesting thoughts that had occurred to him since their last phone conversation, which might have been a few days to a week ago or even earlier today, though there'd have to be a special reason for one of them to call back the same day other than they'd been cut off or there was something important he forgot to say or he had said he'd get back to him with something, and then Robert would say, after a long silence when they seemed to have run out of things to talk about, or after no silence but when he thought the call had already cost Gould too much money, “So, that's it from here, and I seem to have heard everything worth telling from there, unless you've something else to say, since I don't want to take it on myself to cut us off, and I hope to see you soon,” and Gould would say, “No, no, I'm done, and same to you about seeing you soon, and much love to everyone at home,” and Robert would say, “Best to yours too.”

He's had it here and has to get away. Leaves a note:
I'm gone, probably for good. You must have seen it coming. I can't tell you how sorry I am it had to end like this. But I better stop writing this note or I'll never get out of here. Love to the three of you. I'll try to contact you soon
. Goes; packed a few things—couple of shirts, pair of pants, socks, handkerchiefs, sweatshirt and sneakers and running shorts, shaving equipment, things for his teeth and a hairbrush, underpants—and left the house with this small suitcase and a book under his arm and a coat on, rain hat in one side pocket, wool cap and gloves in the other, muffler around his neck though he doesn't need it on this rather mild day and should have packed it, and is off—to where? Where should he go? And how does he get there and why's he leaving? He's leaving because he can't stand it here anymore. There's got to be another or better reason, or he can elaborate on that one. Because he feels stifled, trapped. What does he mean? He's not quite sure. He thought he knew while he was saying it but now he doesn't. Then this: for the last ten years or so it's been nothing but work in every category for him, and he's dead tired and dejected and has to get away from it and everything else here. She knows that. He can't think things through or out or anything like that at home and needs to be on his own and get his head back in shape, and that's all there is to it no matter how vague and trite all or most of that sounds. Oh, hell, he just has to go, period. He's almost always unhappy here, period. He hates it here and has for years, period, period. No, he loves his kids but makes them miserable with his misery and complaints, so another reason why he has to go, besides the misery he causes his wife. He'll leave the car, the house, everything, all the bank and check accounts and whatever's in his pension fund: they're hers. How much money has he on him? His wallet—he forgot his wallet, and goes inside. He gets it off the shelf above the stove and counts. Long as he's here, he'll leave the keys. What use will they be for him now? House and car keys, keys to the building offices and rooms at work, key to the antitheft bar in the car, all of them on a ring, and he puts it on a hook by the kitchen door. He has three twenties and a few ones. That won't even get him a hotel room. Or it will, but a cheap one, or not so cheap: a small clean nice one someplace, but only for the night, and what'll he do for food? He puts three bagels and a package of processed cheese slices and a box of crackers and several carrots and a bottle of wine and the cheaper of their two corkscrews into the suitcase. That should hold him for a day and the wine for two. He needs change for the bus to the Greyhound station downtown. And cash for the Greyhound—doesn't want to use his credit card, as she'd get the bill—but their fares aren't steep and depend on where he's going. And honestly, why is he going? Plenty of reasons; it's not as if he hasn't thought of it before. But one main one: the one he said. He can't stand it here anymore. And it isn't going to change—things aren't and his feelings to them if he stayed—so there's a new reason to add to the main original one. He'll miss them, his kids and wife. He'll contact them, and maybe soon, as he said in the note. But he has to get far enough away from them where he knows he's gone from here and living alone or he'll crack up. He can crack up away from them too. He just might. Not voluntarily, but it can happen. Leaving them, the guilt. Living alone and starting over; he was never very good at it. Calling them, how he'll feel when they first speak. “Daddy, why did you go?” one of the kids could say. The other: “Daddy, you were mean to us sometimes and yelled too much, but we never wanted you to run away.” “Gould, where are you and how do you feel?” his wife could say. “Come back, we'll try to make everything better. Whatever it is, you didn't have to take such desperate measures.” Or “Good, you're gone, we're doing fine without you, don't even think of coming back.” And one of the kids: “There's finally peace and quiet here, and we hope you have some too in your new life.” “I love you,” he could say, “love you both, love the three of you,” and whomever he says this to could say, “Yeah, you really showed it,” and hang up. The envelope addressed to his wife on the dining room table. She deserves an explanation and through her the kids. He takes the note out and writes under his signed first name,
Dearest. And I know it must seem odd if not perverse, my calling you “dearest,” but I don't want to go into it: I haven't the time to digress. I just want to say why I left and give some instructions about our common property and then go. I had to leave because I couldn't take it here anymore. I was going nuts from all the work I was doing and other things. I know how hard my going might turn out for the three of you. To ease things, you can have everything we own. All I've taken are a few clothes and personal items and a hundred dollars
. He runs to the bedroom, gets forty dollars out of an old billfold in his drawer, takes his passport out also and sticks it into his back pocket, runs back to the dining room with the billfold and the rest of the money and their passports in it, and continues the note.
This billfold, which I'm leaving under the envelope addressed to you, has about $200 in it. Actually, now that I think of it, I'll need at least $200: that ought to do as a start. So it has about a hundred in it
, and he takes a hundred dollars from the billfold and counts the money left.
It has $120. It's yours. As is the car, house, furniture, all the money in our accounts and my pension fund, and when I get work, if I do, I'll start sending you more. Everything, then, is yours. I took a box of crackers, cheese, bagels, bottle of wine and the old corkscrew (one with the wooden handle), and, of course, some of my clothes and toilet articles, but I said that. But that's all I'll ever want from what I have here. Books (except the one I took), typewriter, etc., I'm leaving behind for good. If you want me to sign something legal along these lines—if this note and my full signature (which I'll put at the bottom) and date aren't sufficient—let me know first time I call. I don't know when that'll be. I don't even know where I'll be tonight. I know I'm taking a bus today from the station downtown, though so far I don't know to where. But I have to go. I can't explain anything more about why I feel I have to, as I'm not that sure myself. I just know I got to get away from here and my head thoroughly cleared. It's all been too much for me. That might seem a bit overdramatic, but the work at work, work at home, work with the kids and you, and just about everything. I need some rest and peace, maybe a new life, but definitely time to think things out alone. Meaning, by a “new life,” to do something different than I've been doing nonstop the last 17 years. The girls are old and mature enough to take care of themselves with your help. And they'll in turn be a great help to you. I'm just a detraction, if that's the word. I yell too much, get excited too often, fill the house with hatred and gloom and discord and frustration and everything else like that. I'm not making much sense. Give me time to, when I call maybe I'll make more sense. I'll have had a little rest and peace (even just to be alone on a bus trip will help), my head will have started to be cleared, so I'm hoping that'll be the case. I've left my keys on a hook by the kitchen door. If you were thinking of changing the locks, don't, since I'm leaving without even a spare house key, though you'll have to take my word on that. I didn't mean to sound duplicitous with that last remark. I didn't take a spare key, I swear. Anyone calls for me—well, work certainly will, and the rest—tell them I'm gone, I'm winded, I had to get away from everything here because I thought if I didn't I was going to get a quick heart attack while at the same time lose my mind. And that you don't know where I went and that I left a note
—The kitchen door opens. One of the kids comes in. “Daddy, hi, we're back. Mommy needs your help. What are you writing?” “Nothing,” and he tears up the note and sticks the pieces into his pants pocket. “Why'd you tear it up?” and he says, “Nothing, no reason. Something I was writing down to remember something else, but I just decided I'll remember it without my having to write it down.” He shoves the envelope and billfold into another pants pocket. “What's the suitcase for?” and he says, “The suitcase? I thought it had some of my winter clothes in it, which I've been looking for, but it doesn't.” “Oh. You better go outside. She told me to get you if you were home,” and he says, “I'm coming, let me get my coat on.” “You're wearing it,” and he says, “Right, I am. I was about to leave the house when I thought of all those reminders I thought I had to make. What I meant, though, was that I have to go to the bathroom first. Tell Mommy I'll be right there,” and she goes outside, and he gets the food, wine, and corkscrew out of the suitcase, returns them to the places he took them from, runs to the storage closet at the back of the house with the suitcase and leaves it there—he'll get the clothes and other stuff out of it later—puts the old billfold back in his drawer, note scraps into the wastebasket by his desk, thinks, Did he forget anything? What did he forget? Hell with it, can't be important—the envelope!—and tears it up and drops the pieces into the basket and runs to the kitchen and goes outside. “Hi,” he says to his wife's helper, standing by the opened trunk of her car, and then “Hi” to his wife sitting in the front passenger seat. “I'm stuck,” she says, “and I don't want Jenna injuring her back getting me into the wheelchair—she's already pulled a muscle there,” and he says to Jenna, “Oh, yeah? Run hot shower water on it—not even hot; warm, any kind of fast spray. For at least fifteen minutes and often as you can. That's what an osteopath told me to do and I thought it was hokum at first but it's worked almost every time,” and he gets the wheelchair out of the trunk, thinks, Jesus, at least the girl could have taken the damn thing out, unfolds it, puts the cushion down and hand towel over it, and rolls the chair to his wife, carefully unhooks her calves twisted together and swivels her around in the seat till she's facing the car door—“There, that wasn't too hard”—and she says, “You know how to do it better than anyone. But the hardest part's plumping me into the chair. Jenna and the kids haven't mastered that yet without the danger of my falling out or their straining themselves,” and he says, “What's the difficulty?” and locks the brakes, gets her under the arms, and hoists her into the chair. “Thanks. You go back to what you were doing. Jenna can wheel me in.” He's got to get away from here. Her illness, crying, depression, frustration, cuts on her legs every day when she snags them on the metal of her wheelchair or rams into something, the infections, smells, always asking him for something, just when he's sitting down exhausted to read or nap or try to work after doing something else for her—“Gould, you'll have to go to the pharmacy for me”; “Gould, I'm on the floor”—her troubled sleep every night keeping him up, and so on, it's never going to end, and his anger and frustration, saying he won't yell again and then yelling again, it's all going to get worse and go on and on and he has to get away from it. He puts on his sweater and coat, muffler and knit cap, sticks his gloves into the coat pockets and wallet into his back pants pocket, gets his key ring off its kitchen hook, and goes outside and gets into the car and starts it up. No other clothes, bags, valises, or food or drink or anything else. His pen and a book? No, don't go back for anything, because if he does he has a feeling he'll never leave. Once the car warms up—another minute in this cold—just drive the hell away from here. He has some money on him: eighty, ninety. That should do for the day and tonight, and when he runs out he'll get a few hundred more with his card at a cash machine, and that'll be it. So he waits, thinking, Why's he doing this? He's already given enough reasons—he's got to because he can't for the life of himself stay—and then drives out of the carport, thinking, He's doing it, he's really going ahead with it, he's off, goddammit, off! At the stop sign at the end of the street his driveway connects to, he thinks, Which way should he go, right or left? and then thinks, Left, to the beltway and five miles south on it take the interstate west, and from there who knows where? He'll send a letter. To her and the kids. Or addressed to her but also for the kids. Or a fax from someplace, but their word processor at home only seems to be able to receive them half the time, and E-mail's too cold and he's not sure of the address or even how to send one, since he's never used a WP. So an overnight letter explaining whatever he thinks needs to be explained and that everything they own is hers. He'll need some money to get started—three to four hundred, tops; that's not asking too much—which'll be why she'll see that amount withdrawn from their check account, but he swears that'll be all: no need to fear he'll overdraft. For work he'll take a dishwashing job if he has to to get started someplace—anything, but just to be on his own. That's what he needs to be most, now: alone. It's become too difficult for him. Way too: frustrations and self-reproach and much worse every day, he'll say. It's that or shooting himself—“that” being leaving and starting anew—and he doesn't want to get melodramatic about it; he's not shooting himself or doing himself in in any way if things don't work out the way he'd like. It was an expression, a term. No, he'll write an altogether different letter. That he's gone, which should be obvious, or maybe not so obvious that he's gone for more than a night, as he left without taking anything but his coat and muffler: outerwear and the clothes he had on him and the car. And he loves her, loves the kids—and the car he'll return or tell her where to have someone pick it up as soon as he gets a place to stay in a city with good public transportation, or he'll sell it and give her all the money he gets for it, though for that she'll have to find the car's title in her files and send it on. But all that for later. Now he just wants to say how much he admires her: what she's had to put up with, her illness and him. And how sorry he is, he can't tell her how much other than to say very, deeply, disturbingly for what he's doing now and has done to her and the kids in the past. And something about their money and property, he'll say in this letter: that she can have all there is, other than the few hundred he's already withdrawn from their check account to get started. And whatever he earns in the future—within reason, that is, meaning not if he's barely making enough to live on—half will go to her and the kids. And he'll call her when he gets settled. But not to come join him, just to find out how she and the kids are and to tell her, if she's interested, and he could see why she wouldn't be, that he's safe and doing relatively okay. Anyway—car entering the beltway—what will she think when she gets in the house? He should have stopped for a minute or two, before he left, to leave a note. First she'll be curious he's not there, since he didn't say he was going anywhere today, and then concerned, maybe even worried or angry, and by late tonight, after a few phone calls to places he could have gone and people who might know where he is—friends, colleagues, his office—and because she got no calls from a hospital or the police, she'll have understood he left her and the kids and no doubt why. And the kids: how will they take it? They'll be so sad, but maybe also angry and confused. But she might also be a little frightened once she realizes he's not coming back. Suppose she falls and hurts herself: will the kids be able to take care of her till help comes? Or maybe she'll be glad he's finally gone, despite the hardships she'll have to face. The three of them glad, once the difference of his not being there sinks in. He yells too much. He's often so damn impatient and vituperative. He sometimes screams and curses to himself like a madman. “What am I doing here?” he's yelled when all of them were around. “How'd I get into this? I've got to get the hell away. I hate this place, hate this freaking house, hate my life! I can't stand anyone or anything anymore and it's never going to get better and it's driving me crazy!” How many slamming doors can they all take? The kids slamming them on him: “You're scaring me,” “You're upsetting my stomach,” “I can't concentrate on my homework with your yelling.” His wife wanting to slam doors on him and sometimes succeeding. He slamming the door on them too. Lots. “I've got to be alone and get some quiet, goddammit!” he yelled last night, slamming his bedroom door and sitting at his desk. “The music, turn it down lower, that's what's half doing it!” he shouted, and when it wasn't turned down low enough for him, though whichever kid was playing it did turn it down, he slammed open the bedroom door—that's the only way he can put it: the door slammed against the wall when he threw it open—and went into the hallway; the music was coming from his older daughter's room and he threw open her door where it slammed against the bookcase along the wall, and yelled—she was reading on her bed—“Didn't you hear me? Are you deaf? Do we have to go to an ear doctor for you as well as the eye doctor and dentist and bone doctor for your feet?” and she looked at him, as if saying, What in the world are you ranting about?,