Chapter 15
Rich
had never been jealous of the successes of his older brother. He was three and a half years younger than
Brad and therefore it seemed natural to him that Brad would be better at mathematics
than he was. In addition, although
Rich excelled at mathematics, he didn’t have Brad’s passion for the subject.
Rich had no reason to be jealous of his brother’s athletic prowess
either because he played football himself, and in addition to playing at
After Rich had his long, intimate conversation with Anne he felt a need to talk with his brother, to go over the same subjects and to get his views. The next night, they sat together in the same living room, drinking the same brand of beer and talking about the same things as Rich and Anne had talked about the night before.
Rich asked, “So what did you think of her, Brad?”
“What do I think of any beautiful woman brother?”
“She’s more than a beautiful woman.”
Brad said, “Is she?”
“She’s not stupid, desperado.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Rich asked, “Why don’t you marry her?”
“Very funny fuck head. I proposed to her but she’s engaged.”
Rich strummed the opening bars of ‘Wake Up Little Suzie’ on his guitar.
“Very impressive. You’re getting better at that stuff. Did she convince you to play in her Country and Western band?”
Rich didn’t answer. He started singing and Brad opened a beer and drank it quickly. Brad asked, “Did you see all that makeup she was wearing?”
“I didn’t see much make up.”
“You
didn’t?”
“Not really.”
Brad said, “That’s the point. She wasn’t wearing any. Did you notice her clothes?”
“Her
clothes. No. Jeans,
I guess.”
“What kind of blouse was
she wearing?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You’re infatuated with her Rich. You’re an infant when it comes to women. You don’t even see their clothes. You’re just affected by them, like a romantic fool.”
Rich said, sarcastically, “Sorry general. You’ve always been better than me in everything. What was she wearing?”
“She was wearing a man’s long sleeve shirt. Probably her brother’s. That means she tries to hide her beauty and she can’t, can she?”
Rich was silent. Brad acknowledged his brother’s anger, “I’m sorry Rich. Hey, you’ve got a lot more going for you than I do. I can’t even stay in college and get my Ph.D. And I’ll never find a wife as beautiful and intelligent as Caroline”
Rich said, “You’re the most intelligent man I’ve ever known, brother. And you are mess of contradictions. You say that women should never be taken seriously. I’ve heard a thousand discourses. But you take them more seriously than anyone I’ve ever known. I think you’re afraid of women. Since mom scared Jane away, you’ve been getting even with women and you’re afraid to get close to one. You’re still experimenting.”
“Rich. You are an innocent with women and that is a good thing. You’ve got a great wife and that’s good too. I don’t want to put bad ideas into your head about women. However, …” He went to the refrigerator for his second and third beer. “OK, I admit, maybe you’re right. Maybe I still take them too seriously. Kierkegaard says that you’ve got to be crazy to be able to understand a woman, and if you aren’t, you will be after you’ve learned to understand them. Luckily, you don’t know about things like that and you never will.”
“You don’t need Kierkegaard to think, Brad.” He paused for a long moment. “Brad.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you go back to Jeanette.”
“I thought …”
“She’s not a little girl anymore, brother. I see her on campus. She still asks about you.”
“There’s nothing there anymore Rich. After Jane, I realized I didn’t love her.”
“Here we go again. Love. Do you mean love in the Platonic sense, the Christian sense or the Romantic sense?”
“OK. You win. Jeanette and I have a past. A lot of things happened between us that you’ll never know about. I can’t forget certain things. Sure, I can forgive them. That isn’t the problem. But …”
“I’m probably naive, but I’d like to know what’s wrong with Anne?”
“What’s wrong with her? I’m probably naive myself, but for starters, let me ask you a question.”
“Fire away.”
“If
you had to rate her looks, from 1 to 10, how would you rate her?”
“I wouldn’t know how to rate
her. She’s very pretty.”
“I didn’t ask you that. Give her a number.”
“I don’t give women numbers.”
“Bullshit. Give her a number.”
Rich was silent again. He strummed on his guitar for a few moments. Finally he said, irritated, “What do you want? A number?”
“You goddammed hypocrite. You used to watch the Miss America contest every year just like I did. You didn’t have any problems rating women then.”
“She’s pretty. Give her a 10.”
“Are you sure?”
“I suppose so. Yeah. She’s a 10.”
“Well?”
“So what?”
Brad said, “You’re so dense. What do you think she would look like if she put on a red dress?”
“She’s not prettier than Jane.”
“Leave Jane out of this. If you had to rate her body, how would you rate that?”
“I haven’t seen it.”
Brad laughed and took a long swig of beer. “I mean if you had x ray vision how would you rate it? I’ve seen you drool over her man, stop pretending.”
“Off limits. She is a very attractive and intelligent woman. I like her and she likes me. Don’t read anything into it.”
“Well she’s lived in the commune for about two weeks, in a room right next to mine, and I’ve seen around the corners, believe me. She’s a 10 in that department too.”
They
were silent. Rich put down his guitar
and drank from his bottle of
“I thought her band was defunct.”
“We are thinking of starting another one.”
Brad didn’t say anything. After a silence he said, “Her daughter is a real charmer. She’s dammed smart. I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. Nothing gets by her. I love it.”
“You can’t marry Jo.”
“What makes you so certain?”
Rich scratched his head and raised his eyebrows, “What are you saying now?”
“I’m saying that life is more complicated than it seems. Jo is a temptation. Raising a child like that and a few of my own, that’s a temptation.”
“I suppose you’re trying to say that Anne’s too pretty and intelligent for you.”
“Rich. Don’t try to understand me. Please. Look. I admit I’m an idiot. But Anne isn’t right for me. If I fell into bed with her, it would be dangerous for me. With Jo there, I might never break loose. I would have to dedicate myself to her. She’s that intelligent. You know, don’t you, that Anne thinks college is a waste of time?”
They were silent for a long time. Finally, Rich said, “OK. You’re probably right. She’s not for you. But what about me? I mean, do you think I should join her band or will she eat me up?”
“Don’t make me laugh. You’ve got a great marriage. Are you tempted by her?”
“Of course not. I mean, I’m tempted by a lot of beautiful women but with Caroline there, well there is absolutely no problem.”
Brad
said, “I worry about Anne’s brother.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think there is something going on between them.”
“Has she told you anything?”
“No. But I see him at the commune a lot. He’s a real weird guy. He’s on marijuana most of the time and probably on acid too. He’s way out there. It’s obvious that he’s jealous of me. It was what made me aware of the fact that Anne had fallen for me. Walt knows.”
“What are you saying. That they’re having sex together?”
“Not now, but she could be running from him. Something funny is going on.”
Rich said, “She talked about him last night. I guess she implied as much. But she didn’t say anything explicit. I told her quite a bit about your past sex life, like you told me to but she got uncomfortable so you’re going to have to do your own dirty work brother. I did my best.”
Brad asked, “What did you tell her?”
“I told her about Jeanette and the trial for child molestation. I told her about Jane and mom and I told her about Wilhelm Reich.”
Brad chuckled, “Good. It will cool her off a little. Hopefully, she’ll think I’m a pervert! Did you tell her about the Fields medal?”
“Yeah.”
Brad said, “Like I said, I like Anne very much but she’s not for me. You know what I mean.”
“I suppose I do.”
“How’s her voice?”
Rich said, “For what she does, man it’s really good. She sent goose bumps up and down my spine. I’m not too sure about the lyrics. She writes songs. They’re a little corny but that’s what Country and Western music is all about. Opera is corny too.”
Brad said, “I’ve got nothing against Grand ol’ Opry.”
“I need some fun. For awhile, at least. I’ll get Caroline’s brother Bryan to play drums. Anne plays the guitar herself. If you want to join us some time, feel free.”
“Now you’ve got the spirit but three guitars playing Country and Western music might be too much.” Brad laughed at the image. “I wonder what Anne would do if she saw me in my mathematics mode, staring at equations for six or several hours a day, including weekends.”
“I have no problem when Caroline does exactly the same thing.”
Brad said, “I know one thing: I don’t want to have another fist fight with a 200 pound cowboy.”
“You didn’t do too badly yourself. You made him look like a roped steer.”
“If he had ever got hold of me I might not be here to tell the story.”
“Brad, you’ve had so many girlfriends of so many descriptions that you are basically tired of women. That’s why you’re not interested in Anne. Admit it.”
“One never gets tired of the right kind of woman brother. But after awhile you start to get a really good idea of what you want and what you don’t want. Kierkegaard is right. If you want to lead a purely aesthetic life, sure, you find ways of seducing women and getting away from them just at the right moment. In our language, you find ‘em, fuck ‘em and forget ‘em. But I’ve chosen marriage now, and I want to find the right woman. Anne’s looks are completely irrelevant to me. Really. Sure, I suppose if she were perfect in other ways, I mean if she had a Ph.D. in law or something …I might be worried that she would be tempted by bigger, richer fish than me who find her interesting.”
Rich raised his eyebrows.
“Never mind Rich. You won’t understand. Anyway, it doesn’t mater. She’s a Country and Western singer and a very, very pretty one. I suppose that says it all. She’s no danger to you, because you’re happily married and she is much too decent to risk ruining that because she thinks what you have is what she wants but she doesn’t know what she wants. If she did, she wouldn’t even think of fishing in my waters.”
“OK big brother, you win. Hey. I wish I could teach you something someday.”
“You teach me things all of the time little brother.”
“Like what?”
“Like what it means to be happily married. What could be a better thing to teach than that. You and Caroline are a perfect couple.”
“Hey, you introduced us! You see, I can’t win.”
“You have won. Anyway, I had no idea you two would fall in love and get married so soon. I mean, sure, I had a hunch. She had a lot of the qualities I like and I know you better than just about anyone else, so maybe I knew what I was doing after all.”
“I’m going to work on that assumption and I’m going to keep on trying to reciprocate.”
“Thanks.”
The next day was Brad’s regular visit to Dr. Orenstein’s office at the Jungian Institute. Any pretense of therapy had disappeared long ago. In fact, Brad thought Carl Jung’s theories were fanciful and misleading, if not all false, but he respected Dr. Orenstein who had been one of Jung’s early disciples and had known Freud personally as well. After Brad’s grandfather’s death, Dr. O had become a substitute grandfather for Brad and they had spend a great deal of time together, both in his office and outside his office. They kept the same meeting schedule which corresponded to the original Jungian analysis times but Brad often rearranged the time or day or skipped the meeting altogether if there was a pressing reason. Brad was grateful to have such an ally. The bond was sincere because Dr. O and Graham, Brad’s grandfather, had been best friends from long before Brad was born and Brad could not remember a time when he didn’t feel comfortable with Dr. Orenstein and even feel as if he were a member of the family. Relations between Dr. O and his mother, Rhonda Bradford, had become strained since Brad’s grandfather’s death, but they were still on speaking terms. Dr. Orenstein thought that Rhonda was completely under the influence of her Collective Unconscious and hadn’t integrated any of the archetypes into consciousness. He said she was a throwback to an earlier age, a modern witch, and if the world were a more rational place, he would be tempted to call her a walking, functioning psychotic.
Dr. Orenstein said, “Let’s see, I only remember about 20 relationships you’ve had with women since you graduated from high school. I thought your Reichean period was over. What is the big problem now?”
“There is no big problem. I suppose I just like to talk to you about my problems with women.”
Dr. Orenstein thought that Brad smiled a rather too comfortable smile. He said “Well, that’s good to hear. I like to think my knowledge and experience can be of some use.”
“When I try to talk to my brother Rich about it, he doesn’t understand.”
“Doesn’t understand what?”
“Just all the stuff I’ve learned in the last seven years.”
“Stuff you’ve learned with women, since you graduated from high school.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t really understand. He just thinks I’m some kind of expert with women. As if I know them so well just because I’ve had too much sex with too many of them.”
“So what is it that he doesn’t understand?”
“Well. There’s a new woman. I know you’ll laugh. There’ve been about five new women in the last two months. But just to keep you up to date. She’s one of those beauty queens and she’s smart, but she’s working class, from a poor, dysfunctional family. She explained that no one in her family has gone to college and she has no wish to go either. But she has a dilemma. Her daughter is a child prodigy. I’m no expert on children, but it is obvious that the child is extremely gifted. Her name is Josephine. They call her Jo for short. So Anne is going to have to find a way to send her to college. She has a long time to wait because Jo is only 3, but she’s got to find good schools for her in the meantime.”
“And you are going to play the good Samaritan.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t convince Rich that she is not my type and that even having a six-month relationship with her would not be a good thing for me. It would definitely be falling off the wagon.”
“We’ve been through all this before. Convince me that Anne isn’t just a minor walk-on character who is of no interest to the main drama of your life?”
“Well, she’s a typical blond, Nordic beauty. You know that American racist stuff we’ve talked about. I thank God I got beyond that. I don’t even mention stuff like that to Rich because he wouldn’t even know what I’m talking about. She reminds me of Joyce in looks, except, well if you’ll forgive me, Joyce is a shade or two below a ten.”
Dr. Orenstein said, “Extreme beauty is a burden for most women. Look what it did to your mother.”
Brad said, “Try telling most women that.”
“They don’t like to hear it. It’s like telling someone that if they won the lottery it would make them unhappy.”
“Anyway, I’m sort of flailing around but I think I’ve got things under control.”
“Brad, you don’t have things under control. You just have a pretty good grasp of the parameters of your life. There’s a difference. Remember what Tolstoy said, ‘every happy family is happy in the same way but unhappy families are unhappy in different ways.’ Coming from an unhappy family, you have many choices for being unhappy but only a few variations on the choice of a happy life.”
Talk of the Happy Life irritated Brad. It reminded him of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics which he regarded as an owner’s manual for a safe, middle-class life. He persisted. “I’m just trying to say that a lot of the problems between man and women are, sociological and not psychological at all. For example, you’ve got a lot of white guys and Negroes and Mexicans chasing beautiful white women. But take a black woman. There is a lot less competition. If she has African features, she is rarely considered beautiful.”
“Lovetta was a handful for you however, wasn’t she?” He was referring to one of Brad’s Negro lovers.
“Yes and no. At that time I didn’t want to marry anyone, black, white or purple.”
“I’m just glad you’ve decided that the life of Don Juan is dangerous and in the end, unsatisfying. I’m not worried about you. With all of this hippie stuff going on and all the drugs, I’m amazed that neither you nor Rich have strayed much at all.”
“Remember when LSD was completely unknown and there were those psychoanalytical studies and we thought it might be useful to try it to see if I could get in touch with my collective unconscious mind using LSD?”
“I
shudder to remember. I suppose I should
be thankful that I met Timothy Leary when he worked at
“Well, I just remember you arguing so fiercely with me about the Collective Unconscious mind. You thought LSD might open it up for me.”
“Of course I remember that, but I never thought it was a good idea for you to take LSD. Do you still smoke marijuana now and then?”
“You know how I feel about marijuana. It’s very powerful and I respect it but I never smoke it casually like I might drink a couple of beers.”
Jungian psychology was a subject they had agreed not to talk about, so Dr. O changed the subject back to marriage. “I think you know that because of the instability of Rhonda and the fact that Graham died, and the fact I am 78 years old myself, that you will need a very stable woman in your life.” He looked at Brad sternly. “Someone who will be a life-long partner. Not just a woman who will raise your children while you go out into the world, but a friend and lover. Maybe even your best friend.”
“I like to think that I will be able to find another friend like you when you’re gone. I feel good with old people, men and women; people who are outside the striving of the world. Middle age men and women make me nervous. They don’t have time for anyone or anything except their ambitions and families. It’s depressing.”
“Let’s get you married first and worry about that later.”
“It’s funny, but the idea of marriage still makes me nervous. Why is that?”
“It’s just the old feeling men have about freedom. You know very well that once you tie the knot, whether you decide to have a religious ceremony or decide that you don’t want to get the state involved, as you put it, that you will never feel right about making love to another woman. It makes every man nervous. It’s biological I suppose.”