His Wife Leaves Him

enities at me because he said I wanted to steal his parking space. I gave up the space to him, though I’d gotten to it first, because I didn’t want him coming back after I parked and breaking off my windshield wipers. So I drove around for half an hour looking for a spot, before I gave up and decided to put the car in a lot. But they were all filled except for one that charged forty dollars, and only in cash, while all the others would’ve been twenty, check, cash or card. Then, around one, I go out for lunch and forget to get my credit card back at the restaurant. When I go back there, they say they don’t have it. I said ‘C’mon, I last used it here,’ but all right, and from their phone I call Chase Visa to cancel the card. Only good thing to come out of the day is that no one had run up a number of illegal charges on the card in the forty or so minutes since I lost it. And because so many of our monthly bills are automatically deducted from that card, I’ll have my work cut out for me once I get the new one. Then, returning to work, I get a stomachache so bad, and probably from that lunch, that I had to sit on a bench outside for around fifteen minutes till I felt good enough to resume walking. Just before I’m leaving school, my department chair calls me into her office and says I’m doing, as she put it, based on the complaints of some of my students, a rather lackluster job teaching this semester, that my student evaluations for the last semester were pretty poor too, and that there’s a good chance my contract won’t be renewed for next year. What I’m getting at — and I left out a few things: losing several stamped envelopes I was about to drop in the mailbox; forgetting to show up for an important faculty committee I’m on; misplacing my school keys, so having to call Security to let me into my office; jamming the photocopy machine and the department’s administrative assistant giving me hell about it — is that it’s been one of the worst days of my life. Nothing tragic or crushing or that I couldn’t deal with; just one thing after the next; one thing after the next. Even when I tried calling home to talk to Mommy about it — I felt I had to speak to someone — the line was constantly busy.” He gets out of the car and goes inside the house. “Hello, I’m home, everybody,” he shouts. Maureen comes into the kitchen. She looks despondent, starts crying. “What’s wrong?” he says. Then Rosalind comes into the kitchen and starts crying. “Both of you? What the heck’s the matter? — Gwen,” he shouts. “What’s happened? The kids can’t speak. — Where’s your mother?” he asks them. “She’s not answering either. She out?” …Gwen and he are at the Baltimore airport, sitting at a table in a snack bar. Behind her, through a floor-to-ceiling window, he sees a huge jet taking off. She’s saying something, and he gestures for her to wait till the plane’s gone: he can’t make out anything she’s saying. Then it’s quiet and she says “I hate to be cut off in midsentence,” and he says “I was only trying to let you know I couldn’t hear you over the noise and that whatever you were saying was being wasted. Now, what were you trying to tell me?” and she says “That you shouldn’t have driven me here. I could have taken a cab. And that after you did drive me here, you shouldn’t have parked. But if you had to park, you shouldn’t have come into the terminal with me. This only prolongs what I know is misery for you.” “Misery? Being with you? Hardly. I’d buy a ticket and get on the same plane with you if you let me. Sit next to you, if the seat was available, just to have six more hours with you. If the seat was taken, I’d ask the person sitting in it to switch seats with me. If the person didn’t want to, I don’t know what I’d do. Do you really have to go?” “Don’t ask silly questions.” “You’d be much happier with us, you know.” “With the kids, yes, I’d be happy;” she says; “very happy. But, in case you forgot, I’m married to someone else now, I love the big lug, and, unfortunately for me and the kids, he got a very good job in California, so I had to move out there with him. Maybe one day we’ll come back. He understands I don’t want to be separated from the kids too long.” “Listen, move back with me now,” he says. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever really loved. Without you, I’m finished for the rest of my life.” “Not so; you’ll find someone.” “No one,” he says; “I’ve tried. It doesn’t work with anyone but you. Nothing even came close.” “Here, I’ve got a couple of minutes left; I’ll find someone for you. — Miss,” she says to a waitress walking by and who looks almost exactly like Gwen did twenty years ago “are you taken?” “If you mean am I busy, no. You’d like me to get you something? Refill on your coffees? Your check?” “I meant, are you attached to anyone in what we’ll call a romantic way?” “Yeah,” the waitress says. “I live with a guy I like and we’ll probably get married in a year.” “You see?” he says to Gwen. “No matter what anyone tries to do for me, it never works, it’ll never work, and I don’t want it to. All I want is to be with you.” “Darn,” she says, looking at her watch. “Time for me to go to the boarding area and fly home.” She stands, grabs her bags, says “Don’t walk me, and this time do what I say. Besides, they won’t let you past Security.” She puts her cheek out, he kisses it and she leaves. “You forgot to pay for your coffee,” he says. “Only kidding. I’ll take care of it and leave a good tip. Look at that: you leave, I leave.” She doesn’t turn around, keeps walking. “Please look back at me and wave,” he says. She doesn’t, just keeps walking, “All right, keep walking,” he yells. “It’s supposed to be healthy for you, I read. But don’t ever come back, you hear? Don’t even think to. It’s too tough on me. I can’t take it. Don’t even come to the East Coast, because I just might bump into you. Florida, Maine, and every place in between: just stay away. You want to see the kids, I’ll fly them out to you and take care of the costs.” …The doorbell rings. He’s upstairs in his parents’ apartment and his mother says “Martin, could you get it? I’m all tied up.” He goes downstairs and opens the door. Their postman, who says “Man, have you ever become the hot ticket. So much recognition from the outside. Just look at all these letters for you, from everywhere, and a package sent express from France.” “Nothing for the rest of my family?” and the man says “Not today.” He takes the mail into the kitchen and opens the package. It’s a small tin of cookies. No return address on the wrapping or note or card who it came from. His father’s sitting at the kitchen table in the blue-and-white striped terry cloth bathrobe he wore for more than forty years. He’s having breakfast and cleans all the pulp out of half a grapefruit with a tablespoon till the inside of the rind is white and smooth, then holds it over his face and squeezes whatever juice he can get out of it into his mouth. “Save the yellow part of the rind for the garbage,” he says. His father looks at him as if puzzled by the remark. “I was ribbing you. It seemed like you wanted to eat all of it. Don’t; you’ll get sick. Look, cookies someone sent me, I think a secret admirer. Like one?” He gives him one of the five cookies in the tin. His father dunks the cookie into his coffee and nibbles it. “Good, huh? They’re supposed to be the best. From France, from someone I don’t know the name of but who obviously thinks well of me. Unless they’re laced with poison. Just ribbing you again.” His father continues dunking and nibbling. “Mom,” he says, “want a cookie?” She’s pulling a baking sheet of mandelbrot out of the oven. “I’d be delighted,” she says, “if you took one of mine.” “You’d be delighted if I took one of your cookies, or delighted to take one of mine?” “Both; neither. Why do you have to complicate everything? Try not to be so clever. In the long run, it hurts.” “Hurts me? You? Hurts who? And in the short run, does it also hurt, but less so?” and she says “See what I mean?” “You asking if I do or don’t? Okay, I’ll knock it off.” “Besides,” she says, “my mandelbrot’s still so hot it’ll burn your tongue if you try to eat it, and I can’t grab one of your cookies with these oven mitts on.” He puts one of his cookies into her mouth and holds it there till she bites off half. “Good, huh?” and she says “As you can see, I’m swallowing.” “They’re from France, where you expect the best and get it, though nobody makes mandelbrot like you.” He turns to his sister, who must have just sat down at the table across from his father, and says “Have a cookie? They’re from France, sent anonymously by someone who I suspect has a fairly high regard for me.” She’s dunking a tea bag into a mug of steaming water and doesn’t look at him. “Come on, what do I have to do, hand-feed you? I will, because I know that if you don’t eat one you’ll be missing out on something important. Tiny tins like this don’t come to our household every day. Okay, you forced me,” and he holds a cookie up to her lips and then jabs them with it. She keeps her mouth closed, and he says “You’re right; that was a little too aggressive of me,” and puts the cookie in front of her on the table. She nudges it off the table with her index finger. “What’re you doing?” he yells. “There are only two left,” and he tries to catch the cookie with his foot, but it bounces off it and breaks into hundreds of crumbs on the floor. “Must be made of cornbread,” he says. She’s drinking her tea now and still doesn’t look at him. “She must be mad at me over something,” he says to his mother, “though I’ve no idea what.” …He’s walking along Amsterdam Avenue, when he suddenly darts into a funeral home. A man standing by the inner door says “You can’t come in here in shorts. Show respect. If you’re here to attend a funeral, we have a number of gray flannel trousers in different shades and most sizes, if you don’t mind trying them on in the cloakroom. And a yarmulke. You’ll need to wear a yarmulke. That we can also provide,” and takes one out of his jacket pocket and gives it to him, “I’m not here for a funeral,” he says. “I came to pick out a coffin for myself.” “Downstairs,” the man says. “You can take the elevator or walk.” “Just one flight, right? I’ve been here before for my parents and sister. I’ll walk.” Then he’s in the basement and pushes open a door that says “caskets” on it. Two men are applying makeup to the neck and face of a young female corpse. “Pardon me,” he says. “I must’ve read the sign wrong.” “It said ‘staging area,’” one of the men says. “What did you think it meant? You get your kicks looking at dead naked women? Come closer and take a real look. We’ll even part her legs for you so you can peek inside.” He leaves and pushes open a door with no sign on it. “Here’s a very nice one,” a woman in the room says to him, grazing her hand over an opened casket with lots of hardware on it. “Hermetically sealed and exceptionally sturdy. Guaranteed to last a lifetime, we like to joke.” “It looks like it was built for a Mob kingpin,” he says. “Ten G’s, am I close?” and she says “Twenty. It’s a hundred-percent ebony, so like your top grand piano, it’ll never lose its shine.” “Let me see your cheapest coffin. I’m on to your selling stratagem, showing me your most expensive box first, and when I reject that, your next expensive, and so on down the line.” “Follow me,” and they go through several rooms of coffins till they come to the last one, with a single plywood coffin in the middle of it. “This will do the job,” she says. “It won’t last more than a few days, but by then, who cares, unless you have fears of being eaten alive underground. Another joke we occasionally use. Making light of death seems to relax the client. So when is the happy event?” and he says “You know, you’re going to be mad at me for wasting your time, but I’m not quite sure why I’m even here. I’m going to be cremated when I die.” “Good thing not before,” she says. “Anyhow, office for that is on the third floor.” “I’ll take the elevator this time,” he says. “I suddenly feel tired. Excuse me,” and he reaches around her to press the elevator button. …Gwen and he are in a motel room. It’s stuffy, almost airless, he thinks, and he tries opening the one window but it won’t budge. He lets down the venetian blind and snaps it shut. “They don’t even supply the room with a fan,” he says, “and the shower only runs cold. What made us come here?” She’s lying on the bed in only her pajama top, watching one of the movie channels on cable. He sits on the bed beside her and runs his hand along her thigh. “Not now,” she says. “I want to watch this. I’ve seen it before, it’s quite good, but the opening’s terrifying. You won’t want to watch it. You’ll cover your eyes, and the scary sounds from it will make you want me to turn it off. You should go out. Run, swim, work out in the exercise room, or get yourself a coffee. But please don’t disturb me when I’m doing something I like,” and she takes his hand off her thigh, slaps it playfully, and turns back to the TV. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought I was being affectionate.” He grabs his bathing suit, leaves the room and goes down a dark hall, thinking he’s heading for the indoor pool. The door at the end of the hall opens onto a food court of a mall. All the food stands are shuttered except for an old-fashioned soda fountain with about ten padded stools screwed into the floor. A soda jerk’s behind the counter, dressed in a white linen jacket and cap soda jerks used to wear and who looks just like Jeff Chandler. Tall and broad-shouldered like him and same pepper-and-salt hair that starts low on his forehead. Maybe it is Jeff Chandler, he thinks. After his movie career ended, he might not have been able to find any other work but this. But he doesn’t want a soda and the place doesn’t seem to serve coffee or have anything to boil water for tea. He looks around, because he thought he heard a couple of shutters going up, and then back at the soda fountain. Gwen’s sitting at the counter. “How’d you get here?” he says. “You were just in our room, less than half dressed. And what happened to the movie?” “You were right,” she says. “I was? Well, whatever I was right about, good. Because that doesn’t happen too often. Your saying it and my being right.” “You’re too hard on me. I’ve said it plenty; just you never want to hear it. And how’d I get here so fast? I flew.” “Mind if I join you?” and she says “Need to ask? You’re the one who brings in sixty percent of our household income, and besides, aren’t you my spouse? You get first dibs.” He sits beside her. Man sitting on his right turns his way and blows smoke in his face. “Did you have to?” he says, and the man says “What am I doing? I’m smoking. Since when is that a capital crime?” He says to the man who looks like Jeff Chandler “I’m not going to refer to you as ‘soda jerk.’ I find the term pejorative. I’m going to call you ‘counterman.’ So, Mr. Counterman, isn’t there a city ordinance against smoking in public places that serve food?” “There is, but we don’t observe it. Bad for business; keeps customers away. Look at all those other food joints here that have closed. We’re the last holdout.” He moves to the other side of Gwen and says “The counterman’s the spitting image of Jeff Chandler.” “Who’s that?” she says, and he says “Oh, that’s right; you were too young, maybe not even born. Famous movie actor when I was a kid. Used to play a lot of Indian warrior roles, and he always seemed to get gunned down by the cavalry in the end. He was Jewish, you know. You should move to the other side of me so you don’t get the guy’s sidestream smoke. That can kill you too.” “I’m happy where I am.” “What’ll you have?” the counterman asks her, and she says “A lime rickey in one of those tall, chilled, smoked glasses, and lots of ice.” “And you?” and he says “Plain seltzer, not flavored, and no ice or anything else in it, and