Ah!
Would to Heaven the good ship Argo ne’er sped its course to the Colchian land.
Euripides,
Medea
I
was, alone and depressed as hell, lying on the chaise longue
in the backyard. I was sunning myself in
the bathing suit that
And
there she was, standing at the top of the stairs. I didn’t think I would even be able to talk
to her. I didn’t think I had the right
or the will. I found myself raising my
can of beer as a toast.
She
said, “Hi
cowboy.”
“Hi beautiful.”
She
walked down the stairs and I put the book down, carefully and superstitiously
hiding the title. I got up and walked
towards the fence. She drawled like a
cowgirl and her voice was low, almost husky, “You look pretty good there in your shorts.”
“Thanks. I needed that.”
“Adrienne
said you had great legs, but this is too much.
I don’t know if I can stand it.”
She couldn’t see my legs through the fence, but she looked down
appreciatively at the place where she would have seen them if the fence had
been made out of glass.
Jack
felt himself grinning like an idiot. So
he said, honestly, “Thanks
for the compliment. Nobody’s ever told
me I had pretty legs.”
“Listen
to him,” she said to her imaginary person in the sky, showing me her
profile. “Nobody’s ever told him he has
nice legs.”
I
didn’t want to tell her that her face was beautiful, that her pale olive skin
and aquiline nose was ... and I searched
for the right words, words that I wouldn’t allow myself to say out loud.
She
filled the silence with a question, “What are you reading?”
“Oh ... nothing. Something by Jack Kerouac.”
I
showed her the cover.
She
said, “He just
died.”
“What?”
“I
heard it on the radio just a few minutes ago.”
I
was stunned.
She
said, “I might
be wrong but ... it just came over the news, on
“Well,
I guess he finally drank himself to death.”
There was bitterness in my voice.
She
asked in a small, respectful voice, “Are you a beatnik?”
“No.” I laughed.
“I just. I like his books. On the Road ... Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I’m not a beatnik.”
“I’m
sorry.”
I
said, “No, don’t be sorry. There’s
nothing to be sorry about.”
She
stood on her tiptoes and leaned over the top of the fence to see my legs. She said, “Well, if it will make you feel any
better, I like your legs.”
“Thanks.”
She
asked, playfully, “What
do you do with them anyway?”
I
answered with a smile.
She
said, “I
shouldn’t have asked that.” She looked
embarrassed.
“Well,
I like to dance if that’s what you mean.”
“Don’t
talk to me about dancing.”
“Why not?”
“I’m
too old to dance.”
“How
old are you?”
She
looked at her imaginary friend again and said, “Listen to him. Now he’s asking me how old I am.” She turned back to me and asked, “How old do you
think I am?”
“How
would I know?” She didn’t seem to be at
an age where she could be insulted if I guessed high but I guessed low anyway, “23?”
“I’m
26. Can’t you see the crow’s feet? I’m over the hill.” She showed me her profile again, pointing to
the sides of her eyes. I studied her face.
It was all vitality and motion and I couldn’t see any wrinkles.
I
gambled again, “If
you’re over the hill, then I’m in luck.”
She
looked into my eyes, fixedly. There was
a savage, desperate look in her face. It
had an effect that I didn’t think she had calculated.
She
asked, “What do
you mean by that?”
I
waited for a moment, divining what she would allow me say and what she wanted
me to say. I said, conservatively,
stupidly, “I
would be proud to have a beautiful girlfriend like you.”
“What
about
I
was startled that she knew her name.
“She’s
in
She
was silent.
I
asked, “Do you
like to dance?”
“Discotheques
make me feel old.”
“Old?”
“All the men look at the younger
women.”
“I
can’t believe you. You don’t look older
than 26, maybe younger.”
“Maybe younger!”
“26
is young.”
“The
men look at the 22 year olds. Believe
me.”
“22
year olds?”
She looked dejected. I tried to cheer her up. I asked, “Have you ever been to the Greek Taverna Athena?”
“Are
you kidding?” She broke out laughing and
her imaginary friend looked at her in disbelief. “The Taverna
Athena. He want’s
to know if I’ve ever been to the Taverna Athena.”
I
asked, “Well,
you are Greek aren’t you?”
She
turned back to me and measuring me with Medean eyes,
answered in a soft voice, “One hundred percent.”
I
said, “Well, I’ve never been
there. I’ve always thought it would be
nice ... “
She
interrupted me. Her voice was tense, “I can’t go there
anymore.”
I
tried to decipher her feelings. I
ventured, “Why
not?”
“Well,
it’s hard to say.”
I
said, hastily, “That’s
all right, you don’t have to talk about it.”
“I
had an affair with the owner.”
“With the owner?”
“He
was very jealous and ... I’m not going
to tell you the details but he told me never to come back and I never
have. I’ll never set foot in that place
again as long as I live.”
“I
see.”
There
was an awkward silence and I didn’t know where we were going.
She
said, “Maybe I
shouldn’t say this.”
She
didn’t need much encouragement from my eyes.
“A
few months ago, Adrienne said there was this really good looking guy sunbathing
in the back yard. She said, “You’ve gotta take a look,” and I kept saying: “he isn’t much.”
She
paused and looked at me out of the corner or her eye. The playful smile was on her face again.
“She
said, she didn’t see how I couldn’t be impressed. So I said all right, maybe I was in a bad
mood. I’ll look again.”
A
savage look came into her face.
I
said, “I remember seeing you walk down
the stairs while I was reading out here in the backyard.”
She
said, “I told
Adrienne: “I’ve seen better legs.”
Adrienne said she’d never seen better legs.”
I
was surprised that Adrienne was so impressed with my legs.
She
continued, “So
I said, I’ll look again. You don’t
remember that day?”
I
thought she was setting me up and getting ready to insult me and so I said, too
emphatically, ironically,
“Hey, after the first time I saw you I couldn’t stop thinking
about your nose.” I paused and added,
smiling, “Don’t
put me down.”
She
made a movement to hit my head lightly with her open hand. My hand went up fast, reflexively, and
stopped within inches of hers. She was surprised by my quickness. We looked at each other, curiously, warily,
studying each other’s faces.
Her
face darkened with emotion. “I’m not
putting you down.”
I
said, “Maybe I’m in love with your nose.”
Her
gaze turned inward and she bowed her head toward the ground, arching her
eyebrows and pretending to be hurt. She
said, “Don’t
insult my nose.”
“I
love your nose.”
“Are
you going to let me finish my story?”
“I
thought you were finished? You weren’t
impressed with my legs.”
“I
wasn’t. Adrienne said, “that wasn’t him stupid.
That was Billy.” And then I saw
you. And I was convinced. You have the most beautiful legs I’ve ever
seen.”
I
smiled at her stupidly.
She
added, “She was
right. I was convinced.”
It
seemed like we were silent for five minutes, just staring into each other’s
eyes. I thought, “Maybe it’s Flo’s influence.”
She
broke the silence, “Why
else do you think I walked up and down those steps so often? I didn’t have to carry Cindy down the
stairs. Before I saw your legs, I used
to roll down the window and yell at her and she ran to the car. Don’t you remember?”
“Well,
now that you mention it.”
I
knew it was coming, like a tropical rainstorm, and I waited. I looked into her eyes and waited. But it didn’t come. She remained silent and only her eyes told me
that she loved me. I said, “Look, I know it
sounds like a line, but honestly, I feel ... I mean, I haven’t seen your legs
yet but...”
She
smiled and said, “I’ve
got to go.” She turned and began to walk
away.
I
said, to her back, “I
want your phone number.”
She
turned around and walked back towards me, digging into her purse for a
pen.
I
asked, “When
can I call you?”
“Whenever you want.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
I
wrote her telephone number on the inside cover of The Subterraneans. She invited me to come to her apartment that
same night.
It
was late and Cindy had already gone to bed.
The only light in the living room was a dimmed light from the kitchen,
which caused the sequins in the stucco wall to dance kaleidoscopically behind
her as she stood there before me in the darkness.
The
floor stereo was playing Muzak from radio station
KABL. I asked her if I could change the
station and she motioned towards it with an open, upturned palm. I changed it to KDFC, the classical music
station, and turned down the volume.
She
was standing near the couch, defenseless and without guile. I walked over to her and we looked into each
other’s eyes for a few moments, as if we wanted to study the first movements of
desire as it passed over the threshold of hope towards love. And then, like all lovers, we collapsed into
each other’s arms with a kiss. We edged towards the
soft, white couch, afraid to let go. We
were like two dancers on a high wire stretched over the abyss. We sank down into the couch, kissing hungrily
and without speaking, devouring each other.
Then we stopped and sat sunken in the white couch, in the still
darkness, holding each other.
After
a long silence I said,
“It’s hopeless you know.”
She
was silent.
I
kissed her cheek. “Maybe you and Billy
ought to get together.”
She
pulled away from me and looked at me incredulously, “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Why?”
“I
mean about another man. Why would you
want me to go with another man?”
“Out
of love for him I guess.” I knew that was
a false and ridiculous. I didn’t even
like him.
She
said, humorously, graciously, “Now I know
I don’t understand you.”
I
said, “You two are more alike than we
are. You even look alike.” They both had black hair but they didn’t look
alike.
I
said, “I mean,
I would like to do something good for both of you. He’s going to be a lawyer. He’ll make a lot of money. He probably needs someone like you.”
“Probably?”
I
couldn’t believe that I had said it. I
knew that Billy would kill everything human in her and she knew it too. I stroked her hair
and then kissed her cheek again. I said, “I hate to lose
you. It is the most painful thing that
has happened to me in a long time.”
I
wanted to say, “the most painful thing that has ever happened
to me,” but I thought it would sound corny and that she would think it was just
another line.
She
said, as if she had thought long and deeply about it, “He’s too much like my
ex-husband. We’d never get along.”
I
wanted to tell her that I loved her but I was afraid that it was just the
extraordinary beauty that I loved, and that saying it would be a desecration of
my love for
Sitting
there in the darkness, I tried to convince myself that she wasn’t a
conventional beauty but reason rejected every argument, making it all too clear
to me that I was simply desperate to love something other than my vanity.
Her
eyes were closed and I stroked her arm with my fingertips, lightly, from her
naked shoulder to her forearm and down to her hand and fingers. A light goose-flesh appeared on her arm,
causing fear to invade my spirit, and I painted twisted images in the dark that
told me that I gave her the creeps... that our love was absurd... that she too was collecting me for the sake
of her vanity ....
“for my legs” ... because .....
I stopped thinking. It was
absurd.
She
kept her eyes closed and I studied her face as if she were the most beautiful
woman on earth, and as if I would never be close to a
face like hers again and never have the opportunity to touch and kiss such a
face again.
Tears
came to my eyes and I was grateful that she had turned out the kitchen light
and that her eyes were closed. Finally,
after long effort, I savored in her face what seemed to be ugliness itself and
a raucous, harsh, working class woman came between us. But the beauty remained untouched. It began to seem superhuman, mocking every
rule of order and consistency. I felt
that I had to kiss her mouth, to plunge my tongue into it, to glue my mouth to
hers, as if in that way I could effect a magical transformation, a merging of
souls, and so I did, but it was a hopeless prayer to an absent god. I circled her in mute, humble, terrified
adoration. And I remembered the lines of
Apollinaire,
For
one kiss the kings of earth would die, the well-known poor sell their shadow
souls.
The
word “love” seemed small and intrusive and I vowed not to use it again.
We
preserved silence for hours as we lay in each other’s arms on the couch. She pretended to sleep but I knew that she
was waiting for the touch of my fingers on her face and arms and for my kiss on
her cheek and forehead and mouth. And so,
for hours, I stroked and kissed her in an access of impotent longing, trying,
without hope of success, to memorize her face.
I knew that no man should sanely hope for anything more from life than
the love of such a woman and yet I knew that the gods had condemned me.
It
was after
Her
rigid body slackened and she turned her head and looked into my eyes and I saw
sadness for the first time.
I
said, “I hope I
haven’t hurt you.”
“You
can’t hurt me,” she
said quickly, reflexively, but the genius of the Greek nation was in her voice,
the nation that had created Love itself.
I
said, “I don’t
want to leave you tonight without kissing you.”
I
felt her rage strain against my leaving, and looking at her clenched jaw and Medean stare, I knew that, soon, I would be forced to
choose between staying forever or leaving
forever. I reached across the paradox of
space and time, and with a reasoned kiss asked for understanding and
forgiveness. But my bones knew the
grief of Medea and her longing.