Chapter 65

65

Staring out the back of Jamie’s Subaru hatchback, I watch the passed road twitch eastward behind us. Like a couple discovering love, it looks somewhat familiar...but feels so awkwardly unknown.

As we head into the mountains surrounding the city, the Jamies occupy their time in the front seat singing along to Janis Joplin’s Pearl. Their voices stimulate my mind, a lyrical ignition, uniting with the passing pavement and the whipping wind to conjure recollections of the past. Drifting into thoughts, memories rush at me, and I allow myself to wander into:

A classroom. My childhood. She sits across the room from me, as usual. Yet, today there is something different about her. Today she wears a different pair of glasses, her hair parted evenly down the middle. She sees my eyes and smiles just slightly. I attempt to, but cannot, smile back. Her attention returns to Mrs. Everett who is teaching the class how to diagram a sentence. My gaze stays fixed upon her. I’m too busy trying to remember how she looked in her other pair of glasses. I wonder, to myself, which pair she likes better.

The first poem I ever show my father. It’s the conclusion of a dinner together at his home outside of town. He reads it, twice I believe, and hands it back to me. His eyes squint, as if he is looking for something very small deep inside of me, and says, “You didn’t write this.” His voice sounds like loose gravel being pushed aside by four tires coming to a stop. “It’s too good.” Suddenly I decide that I will never show him my work again.

Myself laughing in the corner of John’s parents’ kitchen. John is in the living room rolling another joint. “We should refill my dad’s bottle of vodka with water,” he yells from the other room. “Do you think he’ll notice?” His words sound as if they are tightrope walking across the string connecting two aluminum cans. I continue my isolation in the corner, laughing.

The day I saw the family cocker-spaniel lying dead in the back yard.
The injections. Needle after needle being inserted into my veins by a black man wearing white. Every one causes some sort of pain.

The curly headed girl who took my virgin hand and placed it under her oversized sweatshirt.

My birthday party. Seven years old. It was snowing outside. No one attended. Even my mother felt sorry for me.

A photograph. You and I sitting at dinner together. I burnt it in a plastic trash-can one windy day in December. The trash-can tipped over, and the wind blew the fire and ashes all over the yard. I thought that I might burn the entire house down that day. I didn’t, but I finally began to forget about you.

A one night stand and my confused walk home. 

The moment I realized that I had to go.

The university library, and the stacks we always wanted to make love in.

Your living room couch.

An abandoned house and the rock salt shotgun.

Your disappearance.

My misunderstanding.

The glow of the flash.

The grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, you made, when I showed up on your doorstep, at two in the morning, my clothes ripped, my face covered in mud, high on acid, needing a warm place to stay, which you denied me, when you shut the door, and asked that I never return.


My life, as it comes rushing toward me, like this western road leading me to a home that I’ll barely even know.

“Richard,” she says to me. “Richard, wake up. We’re here.”

Chapter 64

64

I found the letter sitting on the

night-stand a few hours after she had left.

Two pieces of paper, standard, 8x11,

that she must have taken from my office.

They were folded into thirds and held

tightly together by three staples that she

must have slammed into the paper with

purposeful force. I had to rip them open to

get to the words within. She began:

I have and always will be a woman consumed by love.

I have spent my entire life searching for that Hollywood perfection, that Rosalind Russell /Cary Grant sort of love that’s playful and knowing, smart and confident, and most of all...unbreakable.

Not every little girl dreams of marriage.

Not every daughter dreams of their father walking them down the isle.

But every girl, every person rather, dreams of being in love. Richard, when I met you, believe me, that dream came true.

When I showed up on your doorstep, half drunk, rain-soaked and broken, I had no interest in staying for long. Simply a night, maybe two, and I would vanish. Perhaps I would have left a note, a simple thank you letter, but I wasn’t planning on loving you. I was planning on moving to Portland.

But one night became many and began to include days which strung together like a passing train. You swept me up in the whirlwind that is loving you and soon my thoughts of flight hovered much closer to the ground.

I’ve grown so accustomed to us that now, now that it’s time for me to say goodbye, I barely know which foot to begin with. I hate leaving you like this, Richard, but this is fucking killing me.

I could dam a creek with all the things that I just can’t do anymore. I can’t sleep one more night alone. I can’t make dinners for two and then eat them by myself. I can’t pretend that I’m o.k. Above all, I can’t sit here and watch this die. With a little time and support we could have survived the loss of our daughter and eventually, we could have tried again. I could of handled that and we would have been happy again. But I can’t lose the love you and I created together. I can’t watch from the other side of your office door while we fade like photographs. I just can’t do it anymore.

You’re in there now, locked away in your office, drinking, smoking, staring at your typewriter, desperately hoping that the keys will begin to clack by themselves, the words necessary to reason through our loss appearing on the blank page like the ghosts they’re meant to reveal. But they aren’t coming, are they? And yet, you’re still staring.

Don’t you know that I’m staring too?

Don’t you know that I lost everything too?

I can’t bear your burden any longer, Richard, my love. My everything will remain here long after I go, obediently sitting outside your office door. I hope, for our sake, that one day you’ll open that door and return to the life you’ve left behind. After everything we’ve been through together, we deserve that. I love you, but I can’t bear witness to this death.

Until we meet again -
Jamie

Chapter 63

63

She tells me she’s taking me somewhere special today, but is vague about the details.

“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“Jamie, where are you taking me?”
“You’ll find out when we get there. Don’t ruin the surprise.”

Saturday morning. The three of us pile into Jamie’s Subaru. Jr. calls “Shotgun!” as soon as we step foot out of the door. “But I’m so much older than you,” I try and reason. Jr. just looks at me with those exceptional brown eyes that smile just like her mother’s and quips, “We’ll, you snooze you lose, old man.”

The two of us have grown quite fond of one another.

“It’s amazing how much she’s been around the house these two weeks,” her mother says to me last night as we’re preparing for bed. I nod, but cannot reply. My mouth is full of toothpaste.

She crawls into bed wearing a simple pair of turquoise panties and a white tank top that accentuates her breasts almost perfectly. At forty-two she still has an exceptional body and a flawless face that’s been freshly cleaned. The removal of make-up leaves God’s natural canvas completely unblemished. I can’t help but stare at her through the mirror as I absentmindedly brush my teeth. She catches my eye, and demurely smiles back.

“ I have a surprise for you tomorrow.” She says. “Hopefully Jamie will want to come along.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”

With the Jamie’s both in the front seats and me in the back we pull out of the driveway and into the street. From this vantage point it’s all but impossible to distinguish the two young ladies. The Jamie in the passenger seat opens a small carrying case and pulls out a compact disc. She slides it into the stereo and turns around to look at me. “This is one of my favorite albums,” she says just before she cranks up the volume.

And as we head away from the two Jamies' suburban neck of the world, the haunting guitar notes of “Gimmie Shelter” engulf us. Falling back into the car seat, Jamie, I’m not sure which Jamie, but Jamie rolls down all of the windows. With the breeze blowing in and out of the car Mick Jagger and his Stones musically take us back to 1969 while this road westward takes the three of us back to where we all began.

“You can’t always get what you want,” Mick celebrates at the end of Let it Bleed. “But if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.”

A Conversation...

…written on slips of notebook paper at or around three inches in length and two inches in width. She slides one underneath my office door ten minutes before noon.

“Where do we go from here?”

I open it up, read it, and respond in kind. The only writing utensil that I have left is a red pen, which makes the letters themselves feel lonley and desperate, not quite fitting in with the paper beneath them.

“Forward.”
“Along the same lines?”
“No.”
“Like nothing happened?”
“I said ‘No’.”
“I can’t pretend like nothing’s happened.”
“Neither can I.”
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know.”

The notes stop for a moment. I am kneeling in front of the office door with five pieces of conversation balled up at my knees.

It continues.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” it says.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“Neither am I, but you have to eat.”
“Do I?”
“You can’t just smoke and drink.”
“Sure I can.”
“And how long will you survive like that?”
“Long enough. Too long, really.”

Another long pause in correspondence. Nine slips of paper at my knees.

“Richard, I need you to TALK to me.”
“We are talking.”
“No, we’re not. I need you to TALK to me.
“I can’t.”
“How long?”
“?”
“How long?”
“?”

Thirteen slips of paper, and after a short while number fourteen slides up next to my right knee.

“All we had before was each other.”
“So?”
“It’s all we have now. I’m still here, Richard. I need you now more than ever.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Richard. This is killing me.”
“Me too.”

And with that last note, note number thirty-four, she begins kicking and punching at the door during an anguishing outburst of frustrated tears and emotion. I want desperately to consul her, to wrap my arms around her body and squeeze until the strength drains out of us both.

But I can’t. Not right now. For some reason, deep within myself, I just can’t seem to get up off of my knees and open the office door.