I spent an hour or so this morning going back through my folder of old stories and found this. I must have written it around 2002/2003. I remember showing it to a couple friends at the time. I don’t think I ever submitted it anywhere, though maybe I did and I have just forgotten. It’s a little over 4k words, but I think it reads fast.
Reading it again this morning it strikes me as being very “me.” I found a couple other stories that I wrote after this one in which I’m pretty clearly trying to channel Bukowski or Carver. The prose in those stories is very stripped down, meant to make the narrator sound “cool” or “hip” or “smart,” less emotional, less fragile, less everything.
This story strikes me as very honest and vulnerable.
I don’t remember working on it for very long. I don’t recall numerous drafts. It’s possible there was only this one. Maybe two.
I like it much more than I thought I would like anything from this period. much more than I like anything else I found.
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One: The First Time Ever I Saw
The first time there is room for excuses. The first time can be written off as a fluke. The first time can be blamed on alcohol, hallucinogens, and other unknown ingested substances.
The first time you see the madness in your husband’s eyes you attribute it to the acid you assume he has taken, he having been down in Ohio visiting friends while you were in Florida watching your father die in some horrible hospital bed placed in the midst of what was once his living room but by the time you arrived had been transformed into a makeshift waiting room. And so you had thought little of it, aside from your standard annoyance with his voluntary escape from reality. You had thought it yet another waiting game, a few hours and he’d be back to you, restored to normalcy, if that word could ever be used in conjunction with your husband, you having married him for his eccentricities.
Two hours.
Three hours.
Five.
Six.
And
Still.
It is three in the morning, twelve hours have come and gone, and still he shows no signs of coming down, of making a return to you. Sleep is out of the question, despite the fact you were scheduled to work later that morning, despite the fact that you worked all of this day, or is it now yesterday, and you should be dead tired, long since asleep.
Your husband is standing at the foot of the bed, arms flailing, gesturing, looking not at you but at the heavens, speaking not to you but to some god with whom he has become intimate, a god he calls Chaos. You realize that you have just made love not to your husband but to your husband’s body. He is speaking of having impregnated you with God’s child and you pray to your god, his god, any god, that your diaphragm was firmly in place. There is no room for accidents this evening. This is not a night for conception.
Your husband has left the bedroom. You follow him around the corner, into the living room. You find him upon his knees, a knife at his upturned wrist, conversing with the television.
You dress and call your father-in-law. You call your mother in Pittsburgh, who in turn calls the police.
Your father-in-law and the police arrive at approximately the same time, each wondering why the other has been called.
Discussions are held quietly in the threshold of your apartment, all the while the subject remains on his knees, his gaze alternating skyward and frontward, seemingly oblivious to the company in the doorway. In the end it is decided that your father-in-law, his new wife, and yourself will take him — the son, the stepson, the husband — to the hospital, to an emergency room.
On the ride there, in contrast to subsequent trips, he is unaware, non-confrontational, though one or two attempts to flee the car are made, unsuccessfully, the doors having been locked in anticipation of just such an attempt. He does, however, manage to roll down a window and wield a wad of bills out onto the highway, money you did not know to be in his possession, the money you had thought put away, out of reach, saved for the paying of the next month’s rent.
He enters the hospital willingly, too consumed with the thoughts in his head to care where he is. Your hand is held tightly, this being the only indication of any nervousness, any awareness on his part as to what is to follow. Asked his religion during the admittance procedure, he turns his head toward the gray-haired, soft-spoken nurse, and smiling, bellows, “Go to hell!” This will be the last excuse any of you have to laugh for many days.
The next twenty-four hours are filled with tests — for drugs: none, brain tumors: none — bed constraints and the subsequent pleadings and wailings they yield. You remain awake another night, at his side. You rest your eyes only once, for a few minutes in the waiting room while your in-laws stand guard by his bed before they leave the hospital to go home and rest themselves, leaving you alone with your husband of one year.
The following day they return in time for the ambulance ride to the rehab hospital that is waiting to admit him, at which he will reside for the next month. You hold his hand and speak to him in whispers as he looks through you, as he stares vacantly out the window, his eyes showing no sign of recognition.
Later that evening alone in your now quiet apartment, another long day behind you, the tears that have been held back some forty-eight hours begin to fall. Once they begin they continue unabated for some time, for maybe an hour, or two, or three, until, eyes red and swollen, chest heavy, you collapse into your bed, alone. Somewhere your husband lays in a different bed, in a room he shares with a stranger, annihilated by the darkness that descended without warning on his tired mind. In the morning he will call his father. The first words out of his mouth will be, “Am I still married?” The next will be, “Where’s my wife?”
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Two: The Second Time Is No Easier Than the First
The second time cannot be blamed on alcohol. There has been none, or very little (only the staggered handful of nights given in to drunkenness and then quickly repented), in the three years that have passed since the first. The second time crushes your hopes, knocks the wind out of you, you having held your breath all these many months between, praying that today would never come yet knowing it probably would. No longer are you mere husband and wife. Now you are also mother and father, the parents of a girl nearly two, the child you gave birth to when you were deluded with the hope that everything could possibly be okay.
The second time there are warning signs in the days and weeks leading up to the break. Signs you choose to ignore because you know not what else to do with them, hoping, perhaps, that left unacknowledged they might vanish and leave the three of you in peace.
On the four-hour drive to your best friend’s apartment there had been great waves of laughter and tears interspersed with unintelligible chatter. As with everything else — the rapid weight loss, the lack of sleep, the inability to function at work — as has become your way, you ignore and keep driving. The continued motion, the push forward, lulls you into numbness. Two miles from her place you send him into the corner drugstore for diapers. He reappears minutes later with a porcelain Easter bunny in his hands. Once inside his chatter escalates to near rants, alarming yourself as well as your friend and her husband. Your daughter sleepy and hungry, you retreat to the back bedroom to nurse, thankful for the reprieve.
There in the bedroom, safe and secluded, relaxed from the let down of your milk, you pretend it is just the two of you, your baby and yourself, your husband having run away or quietly killed himself. You wish momentarily that either of these sick fantasies were true, then instantly regret these thoughts that make you a terrible person, a horrible mother, a monstrosity of a wife. You don’t actually wish that your husband were dead (and comfort yourself with the knowledge that suicide is never an option, he fearing death too much for that), you wish only that he were away somewhere being cured of this disease that robs him, and you, and her, of any type of normalcy, that eradicates his person.
Your daughter is lying on her back atop the bed, her wee body turned toward you, your breast filling her mouth, the flow of milk draining you of some of the worry, some of the anxiety. Her eyes are closed and so you allow your own to shut briefly, knowing you’ll need the strength gathered here for the hours in this day yet to come, the ones that will likely be some of the longest and hardest of your life.
The voices in the next room have escalated in their excitement and you force open your eyes, extract your empty breast from her agape mouth, her jaw slack in slumber. You tear yourself from her side, from her presence that calms you and fills you with the peace that you imagine most people only find in their place of worship. On a day in which it would seem there are few reasons for thanks to be given, you can be grateful for this at least — for your daughter’s afternoon nap (the longest she takes) — which with any ounce of hope, will prevent her from witnessing her father’s demise into dementia.
Out in the sun drenched living room it is not your husband that your eyes are first drawn to but the varied shades of green that constitute your friend’s assortment of houseplants. You imagine the cleanness and abundance of the oxygen they provide, consciously trying to breath it into your needy lungs. The mirror over the fireplace calls your attention and you see the darkened, frenzied eyes of your husband reflected within it. He is standing before the mirror (as you are told later he had been for some time), the pointer finger of his right hand extended, the words, “I’m going to shoot that kid” heralded into the reflective glass.
Before you can go to him, attempt to reason with him, which, you realize, would be like trying to stop a tornado by pleading with it, there is a knock at the door. Your friend had called your mother-in-law at your request. Upon hearing his mother’s voice from across the room, he spins around, momentarily breaking his mantra.
“What are you doing here?” The question is soaked in fear.
“I came to see you,” his mother replies with feigned calm, taking a step toward him with a hand extended.
He takes four steps back. He looks at his mother with the eyes of a baby bird fallen from its nest and put back by the well meaning but ignorant hands of a child, wondering if she will smell the human on him and cast him out of the safety of her nest forever. He cowers in the corner, suddenly silent, the silence perhaps more painful than the incessant chatter.
You stand near the door with his mother, whose absence during the first breakdown was noticed, discussing how best to get him to a hospital, and more urgently, how to get him in the car. The first time you have to take the dog to the vet is easy. “Who wants to go for a ride?” is all you need to say. The second time they know — without you telling them — without having to name names. The second time they drag their feet, stiffen their bodies, burden you with their full weight. They remember. They remember the fear.
At the sight of his mother and his wife convening in the corner, your husband sits down on the couch, closes his eyes, and shuts down.
“Come on now,” his mother pleads gently, sitting beside him. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, son. You know we have to take you. You know you need help.”
He remains closemouthed and rigid. He doesn’t want any help you could administer. He is a conscientious objector, a peaceful resistor, to the war he never wished to fight. His mother continues undaunted, “Listen, you can come voluntarily with us now, or we can call for help.”
At this… threat… or suggestion… or weighing of options, he breaks the façade, breaks from the catatonia, and commences sobbing. His face reddens and contorts as he begs for mercy, pleads for forgiveness for a crime uncommitted.
“Please, no more hospitals. I can’t go back. Please don’t make me.”
It is an awful thing – to see — to witness. A grown man (or is he yet a boy) begging for a reprieve, being led to slaughter by these women – one who had bore him, the other who had vowed to honor him. Where is the honor in this? Where is the maternal bond, the mother bear’s instinct to protect her cub at all cost?
“If you come with us now, we can get you some help.”
Help. Help he remembers. Help he fears. Help of prodding doctors, stabbing needles, arms and legs bound, small rooms, hard beds, locked doors.
“We’ll be with you. We won’t leave you. We promise.”
Promises. Promises of the well made to the sick. Promises of those having never known constraints, waking nightmares, daytime terrors.
“We love you.”
Love without conquering. Love that holds no cure. Love that can only stand by and watch.
In the end he comes with you, kicking and screaming, sobbing and angered, eyes shut tight, fists clenched, body rigid. In the end he allows you to place him in the backseat of his mother’s new Buick; allows you to take him to yet another hospital, to deliver him into the waiting hands of the physicians and nurses who want to help, but who, in the end, can only pacify.
In the end you do stay by his side, watching over your son, your husband, broken into pieces only to be glued back together again, over the course of days, weeks, years, until once more the glue loses its grip and he falls back apart. This is all you can do. Piece together, glue, wait. Piece together, glue, wait. Repeat when necessary.
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Three: The Third Time Either Numbs You Or Kills You
The third time you are damn near a pro, though you have learned nothing. You feel as inadequate to help as you did when you were an amateur, but you know now what to expect. But then again, you don’t. Then again, you are just as green as you ever were, just as shaken, just as crushed, just as broken. Here is all you know: numbness is the only thing that will see you through. You have to numb your heart or lose it altogether.
It has been only two years, not long enough, you tell yourself, not enough time to regroup, to prepare, to breath. Two years of going on and off medication. Two years of seeing, then swearing off, the doctors. Two years of holding together, taking and losing jobs, living with denials and admissions.
You have grown accustomed to the symptoms, they having been incorporated into your daily routine. Yes, yes, your husband cries uncontrollably for hours. Yes, he laughs hysterically at inappropriate times. Yes, his closet is stacked ceiling high with canned goods and bags of rice, never used blankets, and collectible figurines. Yes, he spends his days, the ones in which he has no job, walking — the train tracks, the fields, the sidewalks. Yes, he is withdrawn. No, he cannot be taken to dinner with friends. No, he cannot endure the noise of Chuck E. Cheese’s and so you and the kid go alone. No, you no longer share a bed, no longer lie naked together, no longer sit on the couch holding hands in the evenings.
Yes, you are saddened by these facts. But they are him, and he and you are we, and this is now us, this is manageable, this is doable. Just don’t think too much, just don’t question, just don’t allow for the “if only.”
The funny thing (ha!) about it is, as soon as you make that statement, as soon as you say, “Okay, this I can handle. It ain’t great, but we can do it,” life goes and one-ups ya, life takes it just a little farther, testing you, seeing what you’re made of.
It is nine o’clock on a warm, spring night when he comes in from one of his many trips to the store (things are bought singularly so as to allow for repeated trips, so as to give the day its purpose). There is a bag in his hand and accusations on his lips.
“Did you hire a hit man to kill me?”
“What?” The television is on and you think for a moment you might have mistaken his voice for that of an actor.
“Well, it ‘d be easier than a divorce, right? Make things simple for ya.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. What’s going on?”
“These kids, these gangbangers on the street, were harassing me, yelling at me. You’re probably paying them to knock me off, huh?” His eyes speak of sincerity. He is not kidding. This is no joke.
What do you say to this? What. Do. You. Say. There is nothing to say. But still, you try.
“Look, if I wanted a divorce, I would get one. No one is talking about divorce. But good god, if you don’t know me by now, if you actually think for a second that I could possibly consider… I don’t know. Then I have nothing to say.”
He retreats to his bedroom, closes the door, puts in The Grateful Dead. He hasn’t been eating or sleeping lately. You’re sure of this. His already thin frame is twenty pounds lighter than it was a mere month ago. He hasn’t been showering. The unraveling has begun, and what are you going to do about it this time?
You climb the stairs to bed, though it is yet early, no longer entertained by the sitcoms you once sat and mocked together. You pull back the covers and slide in next to her, beside the peaceful body of your angel, listening to her calming breaths, capturing some heat from her warm body, wishing to fly away with her into a dream world if only for one night.
But then suddenly, just as you have begun to believe you might actually make that flight, you hear the front door open and close, and your heart regains momentum, accelerating from 0-90 in 3.5 seconds. You wait, motionless, not wanting to find what you inevitably do. You rise from the warmth of the three year old body beside you and at once feel the chill, your body shivering to compensate for the fall in temperature. Through the parted curtain, through the broken glass, you view him down there, hovering on the edge of your driveway, teetering on the curb, motioning to the cars as they pass.
This is too much, you think. Something has to give. Something has to be done.
After thirty minutes pass and still he remains outside chastising the nighttime drivers, engaging in a solitary round of charades, you call his sister, thinking he’ll listen to her, that he trusts her, that this is her turn.
When she arrives he comes in at once, knowing he has been told on, knowing the drill. Fathers and mothers and sisters arrivals in the nighttime hours, unexpected, out of the blue, are never good. Can mean only one thing: persecution.
“How you doing?” she greets him as he enters the kitchen, his head hung low, his hair obscuring his view.
“I used to sniff cocaine off a model’s ass. Those days are over.” With this reply or admission or poetry he vanishes down the steps, into the basement, leaving the two of you to discuss his welfare. There is no question drugs are required. It is agreed that a doctor’s visit is a necessity. But when? And where? And how? No one wants to go the route of the emergency room this time. No one wants that. Hospitals are to be avoided at all costs. Phone calls will be placed in the morning, after 9 a.m., if you can make it through another night.
Secretly you wish she would take him home with her, babysit for one night, give you a much needed break. Hospitalizations, you have come to realize, are not only for the sick to get well, but also for the well to avoid sickness.
But she does not volunteer and you do not ask.
She stays long enough to see him to his bed, where he convinces her he will remain for the duration of the darkness, until first light.
She stays with you in the kitchen for some time, until she is satisfied he is capable of rest, surrendered to sleep.
As long as she remains in the house with you, you can breath. The second she goes, the instant her car backs out the drive, you having fought the urge to run out after her, to grab her by the sleeve and beg her to stay, you crumple. You turn off the lights, gather up the phone and flashlight, and make your way past his room and up the stairs. You abstain from breaths, forego blinking. You pray and hope and wish. You lay back down because it is the middle of the night and there is nothing else to do. You lay and listen and wait, with a flashlight in one hand and the phone in the other.
You hear him stir, hear the creaking of his bed, his feet upon the hardwood. You hear the click of his light, footsteps making their way to the living room. And then you hear the sound you hadn’t counted on, the one that throws you when you thought yourself incapable of being thrown. It is the sound of metal. The sound of a sword being taken down from its decorative perch on the wall. The sound of it being held by hands that bear many rings.
This sound resumes your shaking, begets the falling of tears, causes you to creep silently across the hall on hands and knees, careful not to creak a floorboard, cautious not to give him reason to listen overhead. You go to the guestroom, where you sit on a rug and dial your mother’s number. In the ten years since you left home, you have never once phoned your mother in the middle of the night. This fact alone should be enough, without you having to say a word. This should tell her everything she needs to know. But somehow, it does not. Questions and answers are traded, support offered from a comfortable distance, but the words you long to hear, the ones that go, “Say no more, I’ll take the first flight out tomorrow,” never come.
“I wish you could be here to help me,” you hear yourself tell her, surprised by your own honesty, your exposed vulnerability.
“But what could I do?” she asks.
“Nothing,” you say, hanging up the phone with a promise to call, to keep her abreast of the situation.
“Nothing but hold my hand and stand by my side and keep me from shaking.” That is what you think but never say.
You return to your bed, to the absence of sleep. In the morning you will call a friend, ask her to keep your daughter. You will gather up your husband, push him into the car, take him on a wild goose chase in search of doctors and medicines. You will note the resentment in his eyes, the distrust, the coldness. You will do what you have to do because he hasn’t slept in three nights, has ingested nothing but instant coffee and cigarettes in as many, and because he is scaring the hell out of you.
After six hours of being sent from one building to the next, from one doctor to another, of telling the same story over and over again, you drop him back off at the house, pills having been swallowed, pills that will take days, weeks, months to show any signs that they are not merely concocted of sugar, as he believes, as he tells you.
You collect your daughter and pay for a room at the motel down the street. For twenty-four hours you will sit in a bed that is not your own, next to the smiling face of the child who reminds you of your own innocence, watching cartoons and eating take-out. You will sleep like a baby and awake refreshed. You will summon up all your newfound strength and return to him with new hope, a resurrected will to help, the empathy that is always there, but that occasionally gets pushed aside with weariness.
You return to him. Again and again and again. Until one day, you do not. Until one day you pick up your things and move across town. But that day is long in the future. That day is a lifetime from now.