His Wife Leaves Him

hat 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 in any kind of clean glass.” “Before I bring you two anything, there’s a large tab the lady’s run up. Could you pay that first?” “How could she have run up anything?” he says. “She just got here.” “Thirty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents,” the counterman says menacingly. “Okay, okay. If you are who I think you are, I know what you’ve done and what you’re capable of, so I’m not going to argue with you. And what the hell. Not a lot of money.” He pulls out his wallet and opens it. His credit card’s gone. “Oh, no.” he says. “My worst fear.” …He’s working out on one of the strength machines at the Y, when Gwen comes in. He waves to her. She stops to look at him, doesn’t smile or wave back, gets on an exercise bike and sets a book on a holder in front of her and starts pedaling while reading. What strange behavior for her, he thinks. She looks around at him while pedaling. He smiles and mouths “Hi, what’s doing? And why didn’t you say hello?” She faces forward again, pedals, looks back at him a couple more times, gets off the bike, wipes it down and comes over with the book under her arm and stares hard at his face. “It’s you,” she says. “I told myself when it happened that I’d never forget your face, but here I have. Good thing you kept making yourself obvious to me. Yeah, go on, smile and wave, you filthy bastard, but I’m getting the police. Everybody,” she yells, “don’t let this man leave here. He raped me more than a year ago and was never caught. I’m going to call the police now,” and she leaves the room. She comes right back with a policeman and says “This is the man who jimmied my kitchen window to break into my apartment and forced himself on me in bed.” “That’s ridiculous,” he says. “We live together; she’s my wife,” and she says “Since when?” “I’m afraid I’ll have to take you in, sir,” the policeman says, and motions him off the machine, grabs his arm and starts walking him out of the room. “Gwen,” he says, “do you realize what you’re doing and what’s going to happen to me? Whatever your reason for joking around like this, it’s gone too far.” …He wakes up, shakes Gwen’s shoulder from behind and says “Dostoevsky’s dead.” “Of course he is,” she says. “1861.” “1881. 1861 was when I think