Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (56 page)

I love you

R.

Dearest R –

Late home from full day at work, 7:30 no
less, but had one last house to show, which I am certain was a
waste of time. And waiting for me was your letter, about, in fact
the longest missive and the most direct I have ever had from you.
We must have been thinking the same things at the same time – just
as I tried, rather timidly I admit, to say I felt you were holding
things back, maybe until you had time to deal with them yourself,
maybe to avoid disturbing me, you suddenly come through. And I do
appreciate that so much. I do promise to say nothing about us to
anyone up here, certainly not Bill or Kathy. And don’t feel you are
wrong in your decision to keep in touch. I guess because I made
that decision too, but that’s not the reason I agree with you. No,
it really comes down to the belief that one person cannot monitor
another’s behavior, nor regulate it – no matter how that person
feels about the other. And further, to request that person to
change his actions cannot ever be misconstrued to mean his
thinking, his feelings will change too.

But you are right. We can never walk away
from things, especially lives we have helped create. Think you may
also be right to agree to her request, if only verbally. How well I
know what she must be feeling – both wising to be the rational
liberal, yet feeling torn up inside. Her greatest war right now is
with herself – how she wants to feel, how she really feels.
Anything to mitigate that – or bring focus to the real concerns –
and I still believe that at the center of the matter I have no
position. I am peripheral to that – is right. We would never have
met as we did, loved as we do, had all things been right with your
relationship with Alice Ann. How’s that for reverse-positive
Calvinism? I know it’s redundant to caution you, after all this,
but be ever so careful to cover our communication. And don’t worry
about the collect calls – they are absolutely necessary. First, as
a matter of discretion, the fewer traces of me down there, the
better. Second, I would go positively mad if I couldn’t hear from
you. It’s so important to me. And the closest we can possibly be
for what seems like such a long time.

Anyway, sitting here on my green couch,
loving you so much and it seems to carry over to everything, even
the jerks at work. When you love, I guess you love everything –
it’s joyous, really – there’s so much inside and it doesn’t seem to
exhaust itself. Even feeling sad is just another way of being able
to feel. Such a long way from the dead person I was a while back.
So much I owe to you. Tenderness for you. My hand would find yours,
smooth our forehead a bit. And I did cry when I read your letter.
Because I am so happy you brought me into myself, into acceptance
of self, showed me that people can love each other in real ways –
in turn, I’m afraid I have helped agitate the most tormented time
you have ever known. What doubts, pangs of conscience I have, all
stem from that, my love. You have made me happy. I have helped make
you unhappy. What I want more than anything else in this world is
the assurance that you are living the life you desire. There is
little now I feel necessary for myself. I’m happier than I can ever
remember being. Only being with you could make me happier. Knowing
that I love you and that you love me – just overwhelming joy. I do
believe in you and the goodness of our love. You are really a
beautiful man, Ralph. Hate to see you pulled in conflicting ways,
yet know you wouldn’t be where you are were it not for those very
things that I cherish in you.

******************************************

Sweetheart –

On to another page, and a few lines before
the mailman comes to the office. No phone all from you over the
weekend. Afraid to imagine that you are in the midst of another bad
time. Still helpless to help. Can only think of you and hope that
you know that. Want not to be a part of your talks with Alice An,
if that’s possible. As I have said, believe that only confuses the
real talk you and she must have for the next months, even a day at
a time. I know you love her, too – maybe quite differently from the
way you feel about me, that’s not important. What does count is
that you find ways to understand what that love means for both of
you. Perhaps you know that now, perhaps not. But those things, or
that issue, must be dealt with for the sake of you, especially, the
also for Alice Ann, finally for me. I’m here when you need me; I’ll
wait until you tell me other.

The last installment of this letter was
Friday night. It’s now Monday. The quiet weekend I had planned did
not remain quiet for long. Worked at the Flame during the day,
Saturday, homecoming weekend. Ran into a lot of people I hadn’t
seen for years. Got off work and went to a party on the other side
of town. Was pleased because these were all people who were not
connected with the group I have been running around with all summer
and fall. Rather amusing experience, up to a point. These were all
the young Missoula wealthies, and their lives are every bit as
tattered as everyone else’s. Got into some fun exchanges and
frivolous arguments about keeping Montana “pure,” helping the
handicapped and abortion reform, etc. Party all moved en masse to a
supper club for more food and wine (don’t know who paid for my
dinner, but no one let me pay … distinct advantages to being a lady
at times), then on to the Elks for more drinks then on to a steam
bath and finally home. I was the only single person in the entire
group which made it rather amusing, but I felt comfortable about
it.

Got a call from Kathy the next morning.
Buffalo Bill had managed to lose her car the night before, so we
went looking for it. Found it in an alley near the East Gate and
the new Edgewater Inn. Bill had apparently traversed back and forth
between the two bars Saturday night, getting kicked out of one,
then the other. Kathy got a call from the East Gate saying they
were going to call the cops if she didn’t get him out of there (we
can’t imagine what he was doing there .. no one gets kicked out of
the East Gate). Anyway, she managed to get ahold of Roger G. and
the two of them rescued Bill and they all went drinking downtown.
At that point the car was decidedly missing.

After looking for the car, Kathy and I
decided to have a quiet drink at Ron’s and then split. Crazy scene
ensued. Ran into two guys there whom we both know. Sat and talked
with them at the bar for a while. The one guy had had the party at
his house the night before and is an old high school friend. Both
guys are married, so there was nothing going on, but then began a
series of mistakes. We moved to a table so we could all talk.
Suddenly John’s wife (John is my high school friend) stormed in and
slammed a tennis racket and bag in the middle of our table and then
swept out again. Kathy and I felt pretty bad about this as we were
certainly not in the midst of any tete a tete or anything like
that. So we sat around trying to decide how John could make amends,
still half laughing at the absurdity. Then in stomps our Buffalo
Bill. A double-hitter. By this time I was moderately drunk and
everything was looking incredibly silly. We all sat around for a
while longer while Bill huffed more or less amiably. Then John and
I split to grab some food and hopefully sober up. Decided the
situation could get out of hand as it often does around Bull and
didn’t want to be a part of it. Bill and Kathy moved to another bar
and continued to drink for a while longer. Then they went home and
Bill really laid into Kathy. He decided the two of us had moteled
it with the guys in the afternoon, and had rendezvoused later at
the bar. He stormed about me too, threated to tell you, and in
general was one angry man. Can’t say that I blame him in some ways.
I guess married women really don’t go into bars and sit down with
married men and drink afternoons away. But at the same time it was
so completely innocent and it is difficult for me to understand why
men and women can’t be friends and talk to each other when they run
into each other. Kathy came into the office earlier this morning to
relay all this and we laughed again, but decided we just weren’t
too cool in spite of our innocence. I guess I will never understand
all these values.

Two nights of drinking is quite enough, for
me anyway, so now I move into the sober week. Still a bit hung over
as you may surmise from my scattered sentences. But thinking of you
constantly. Have relayed all the events of the weekend because
perhaps you may feel the same way Bill does. If you do disapprove
of my going to parties, etc., I will not mind curbing all of that
in the least. It simply never occurred to me that I had done
something objectionable. Of course, Bill feels that when men and
women are together they just have to be fucking. But aside from all
of that, you might simply prefer to know that I am at home. And if
you feel that way, please tell me. I love you and want my life here
to the very least of your worries. Won’t promise to quit drinking
entirely, but do intend to live a pretty straight life here and
have not dated at all, don’t desire to or intend to.

Almost time for the mail. Love you so very
much. Rest easy, loved one.

L.

Dearest Ralph –

Sitting at my typewriter cat in lap coffee
and phone within easy left-hand reach. Just coming up from a supper
bout of depression myself. Can’t explain, really, what caused all
of it, worry about you and me an us, a major factor. Anything I
want to say now sounds so trite. I fell I know what you are going
through; without question, I know something of what Alice Ann
feels. I sense your depression and it frightens me. From this
distance it is so difficult to help you. Bill is right when he
urges you to stay off the booze. If you are down, it only increases
that. Benn there as I guess you have, too. What has happened to you
stirs memories in me that are too painful to talk about. But that
damn thing can spiral. And suddenly you’re not I control of your
lie, you’re not in control of anything.

Wish I had happy things to write about from
here. But it has been gloomy here too. Halcyon days long gone.
Think you wrote of them. Days at their worst now. Got to balance
out soon. At any rate, it is a quiet Sunday. The picture on the
wall in front of me holds my grandmother among its august ladies,
the Deutsche Damen of Denver. It is tilted. Maybe I will adjust it
sometime today. If I can remember to do so. And if I can muster the
energy. I seem to be dead tired most of the time – so fucking
frustrating.

Enjoyed several days of sobriety. Then,
Thursday, I began to distrust such piety, even discovered a certain
stagnation after days of flat predictability. So I set out for town
after work and managed to get wondrously smashed in a night of
misadventures. Started with Bill and Kathy and various other
riff-raff writer sorts at the Stockman’s. Talk between Bill and me
got pretty intense. Lot of tender areas exposed. He told me you had
called him the other night, somewhere around 5:30 a.m. Unable to
sleep, he said, and rather drunk, and faced with the need to teach
a class at 9:00 that same morning. I worried about you, and was sad
that you hadn’t called me collect at that time. I was lonely too, I
guess. And Bll, with his penchant for telling what he perceives to
be truths, advised me that what had transpired between you and me
would have transpired between you and anyone available last summer.
You had a need and I just happened to be the one who fulfilled it.
He said you were merely experimenting with your life and I was a
part of that. We drank more and more and such talk continued. We
agreed that we are enemies, Bill and I, and that we can therefore
behave as such to one another without having then to apologize for
such behavior. Bill claimed his behavior stemmed from the fact that
he truly loved me. I countered that he loved all women and also
hated them concurrently. We conceded this was true, but that he
loved some more than he hated others, or something like that. We
were making great progress. Kathy just sat there seeming to take
all this in, that little half smile playing across her lips.

Actually, she seems of late to be leveling
out, or so I thought. After being good for a few nights herself,
she had a couple of seriously drunk nights at the Flame, and that
seems to have restored her sense of guilt, and it seems that she
needs to feel at fault in order to relax in the midst of the
failings around her. Don’t ask me to explain that bit of business.
Just a momentary insight that is obviously flawed. She does seem of
late to be a little more patient with Bill, although she obviously
much prefers not to have his company when they are both out on the
town. Can certainly see her point. When they are both in the same
bar, Bill’s behavior becomes increasingly raucous and often
absolutely vulgar. It seems to subside the minute she leaves for
other quarters. Could this be yet another game they have both
figured out? Kathy claims that there has been violence between them
in the past, something Bill categorically denies. At any rate, at
one point Kathy got up rather unsteadily to go to the restroom, and
on the way she stopped to speak to a man at the bar, someone I know
a sweet, older man who is a friend of my parents, someone I’ve
known since the third grade. When Kathy returned to our table Bill
accused her of planning a liaison with the sweet, older man, that
they were trying to get Bill drunk so he could pass out and they
could fuck each other’s brains out. Then, after a bit more
absolutely schitzo behavior Bill suddenly decided he loved his wife
with all of his heart, and he became more affectionate than I have
ever seen him with her. Amazing. Soon though, Kathy, being very
drunk and stoned after smoking a joint in the restroom, announced
she was going to sleep in the car. Bill and I went up and sat at
the bar and continued our banter. Basically I kept drilling into
him the fact that I was sick and tired of him being angry with me
all the time and dragging my imagined bad behavior into their
problems. He just kept declaring that he seemed to always hurt the
ones he loves the most. But he also kept declaring I was “fucking
up” with you. That I was fucking your life up. But as I grew
sadder. I mean as I began to cry, he announced that perhaps I was a
good woman after all. I really can’t stand that stuff. Unless he
can see me cry, he thinks I am unfeeling I guess. Finally, I had to
leave. I was devastated. Went home and lay down but I couldn’t
sleep. I began to cry and I couldn’t stop. I went downstairs and
lay on the couch and I must have cried for hours. It seemed like
hours anyway. I lit a candle and put it on the coffee table and
even prayed a bit that life would have meaning that good things
would happen, that love was possible, that people touched. Don’t
know what this all means. Really, I went a little crazy I guess. I
could find no justification for continuing a life that lacked
significance.