gem
I’d just bought limes
dreaming up autumn skies
at the close of empty party bags
full of the same
leaning a bad haircut
gem; piano lessons, and late night eating
The Art of Listening
“Can you clear some of the stuff out of the attic?” my husband asks. “I need to fix that cracked window. The clutter’s in my way.”
Eavesdropping in a Panera Bread
I rarely write in coffee shops. I prefer the privacy of working at home, where I can protect my anonymity as an unpublished author; I don’t want other café patrons to observe me as I struggle to write.
Maceo
Lyudmelia blew smoke rings at the kitchen table. As she exhaled, she squinted at the mismatched aluminum chairs. They had been meant for company. Mom had given her and Maceo money for them when they were first married.
With Maceo, she had driven dutifully to Sears, to the store’s August clearance sale. They had bought two yellow, two gray, and two brown seats. The yellow and grey ones lived in the kitchen. The brown ones sat folded in the hall closet.
There had been other chairs, wooden ones, which came as part of a hand-me-down set from Maceo’s parents. Those chairs had fallen apart within months of their marriage.
The young couple had subsequently bought two cars, a refrigerator, a washer, a dryer, a microwave, a week at Tahiti, and a week at Cape Cod. They bought new wardrobes. They never, though, replaced their kitchen set.
Next to Lyudmelia’s ashtray was a stack of pistachio shells. She had eaten half of a twelve ounce bag. Worse, she felt no ill effects. The young woman stared expressionless into her smoke.
She ought not to be surprised. She had slept with Rainier. She had slept with Garian. Rainier had been a joke. Garian had been an accident. Even when bedding them, she had kept Maceo in her heart. Ori, Maceo’s graduate school buddy, though, had been different; love is a complicated matter.
At first, she thought it was lust. Ori had chest hair, a habit of opening doors for her, and an accent she couldn’t place. So, she tried to empty her mind of him.
Years before, she had noticed and ignored Maceo in a similar way. At the time, her husband had been merely: a philosophy major with sideburns, a discreet source for nitrous oxide, and a disco king.
She and Maceo had met in a mutual class, “Minds, Brains and Programs.” They had been friends of friends. Nothing more than cheese pizza ought to have happened between them.
To the contrary, before Lyudmelia began her postdoc, she relost her chastity, gained new “love handles,” and got her already curly hair permed. She had thought little, initially, of the cream-colored notes Maceo had regularly affixed to her door, but a pack of Virginia Slims and half of a bottle of light rum mixed with pineapple juice later, those missives had become impressive. Hence, the changes.
Lyudmelia sighed, remembering the first time she had fingered her husband’s facial hair. Fortunately, he used a minimum of product. After her stint in New Jersey, she had returned to Connecticut to be a fellow in oceanography at the University of Connecticut and to be closer to Maceo.
Ori studied at Yale. Maceo, who was also plowing through a doctorate (his specialty was Substantive Theories of Epistemic Justification), had brought Ori home after a PhilPapers Council. The two of them had sat on the stoop all night, flicking ashes onto neighborhood cats.
Even after pulling her pillow over her head, Lyudmelia could hear Maceo jest to Ori. He crowed that his professional focus would allow him to find a means to show that sometimes crime ought to pay. Ori said the same thing with his eyes when Lyudmelia served the twosome coffee and eggs. While Maceo was in the bathroom, Ori gardened kisses on both of Lyudmelia’s wrists. She didn’t stop him.
Ori became a Visiting Lecturer at Henry Cogswell University. Although his new school was a technical one, he was hired as part of its growing liberal arts faculty. He urged Lyudmelia to join him there to teach bioengineering.
Instead, Lyudmelia stayed with UConn and with Maceo. Once, though, she flew out to Washington. The American Society of Limnology and Oceanography was meeting in Seattle and Lyudmelia had cultivated an intellectual itch, almost a fetish, for data on drainage basin studies.
Ori invited her to sleep over. Lyudmelia agreed and then cancelled. A few years later, in New Orleans, when the society was having a section meeting on wetlands and reservoirs, and when Ori had long since relocated to a tenured position at Loyola did she consider spending the night with him.
Initially, Lyudmelia had taken refuge in the company of a colleague from the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department at the University of Houston, rationalizing that it would be okay to meet as a threesome to enjoy some red beans and rice, a side of okra and a few Sazeraks.
Lyudmelia spent the evening staring at Ori’s profile as she dared not to look directly at him. He had lost no hair and had gained musculature in all of the right places. Sipping at her drink, she wished she had also ordered bitters.
After dinner, while Ori belched up spicy chicken every few minutes, the three walked around the city. The Sazeraks had muted the gal from Houston. She had difficulty staying on the sidewalk. Ori put her arm in his, but every few paces looked back at Lyudmelia. In the French Quarter, Lyudmelia refused to get up from a bench. She hailed a cab and left her cohort with her cohort’s would-be lover.
Ten months later, Lyudmelia and Maceo received a wedding invitation to the wedding of that oceanographer and Ori. Maceo insisted that they go.
During the reception, Ori hovered near their table, the one filled with his work associates. Lyudmelia chastised him for not dancing with Baily, his bride.
Ori shrugged. Baily had already downed two Whiskey Smashes and one Cable Car. Her sister was making sure the path to the ladies’ room was clear. Ori just hoped his new wife would be careful when she shoved wedding cake into his mouth. He wanted to look nice in the pictures.
A fourth and fifth time, Ori returned to Maceo and Lyudmelia’s table, taking breaks between visits to dance with his new mother-in-law and to joke with his father. When he finally danced with Lyudmelia, he traced his fingers along her wrists.
Ori called Lyudmelia on the eve of his and Baily’s first anniversary.
Shortly thereafter, he and Baily chose to vacation in New England. Maceo insisted that they bunk with him and Lyudmelia.
Two nights before Ori and Baily were to leave, when the foursome went out for dinner, Ori positioned himself opposite Lyudmelia. When he bent to tie his shoe, he also caressed her ankle. Maceo, who was holding Lyudmelia’s hand under the table, didn’t notice.
Baily, who was on her fourth Bartender’s Bingo, though, did realize that her husband and her colleague had submerged and reemerged several times. Her protest, however, was slurred.
Lyudmelia, appreciating Baily’s perception, made a moue with her mouth as if to apologize.
Baily shrugged and smiled sadly. Ori had smelled of other women long before she and he had gotten to the altar. It would be decades and hard won sobriety later that would bring Baily to destroy all of the handwritten letters from Lyudmelia to Ori.
Lyudmelia blew more smoke rings and grimaced. A wave of nausea rose from her gut. The night of that dinner, when Baily had caught her and Ori making bug eyes at each other, a robbery had taken place in the restaurant. Maceo had been horrified and had called the police. Baily had finished her drink and then had finished Ori’s. Neither Lyudmelia nor Ori had noticed the commotion.
After their meal, the four had walked to a hand scoop ice cream stand. Lyudmelia had watched Baily gently wipe chocolate-chip from Ori’s lip.
Lyudmelia had cried herself to sleep. Maceo had said nothing, except for intermittent exclamations about the sorry state of the police force.
The next day, before their New Orleans guests left, Lyudmelia stepped into the living room in her robe. Maceo, and later, Baily, too, filed in. Baily wore pajamas. Maceo wore sweats. After the breakfast dishes were drying, Ori appeared. He was fully dressed.
Lyudmelia thought about the barrier that his shirt and kakis created. If she were to hug him goodbye, she would feel little of his chest or of his other bits.
Maceo and Lyudmelia returned to their bedroom to dress. In between undergarments and jeans, they had hasty intimacy.
The rest of the day, the foursome visited museums and galleries. Baily meant to return to Louisiana with a Red Sox cap.
A few years later, the couples reunited in Ocean City. Baily was svelte and drunk. She liked alternating saltwater taffy and Tiki cocktails. Ori had begun to bald.
Maceo, who had gained a habit of morning jogs, went to bed early each night. Baily drank herself to sleep. Lyudmelia and Ori took furtive starlit boardwalk walks.
One night, a few blocks from the hotel where the four were staying, Lyudmelia stopped, turned around and reached for one of Ori’s hands. He neither grazed her wrist with his fingers nor looked into her eyes. It was over.
Lyudmelia had slept with Rainier. She had slept with Garian. With them, she had only shared her body.
She blew additional smoke rings and intentionally knocked over her pile of pistachio shells. Recently, she had joined a support group. Although Ori had filed for divorce and Baily had given him no contest, Lyudmelia would not further dupe Maceo.
The Happy Marriage by Tahar Ben Jelloun
I have made a goal this year to read more literature written in countries outside the English speaking world. Tahar Ben Jelloun was born and raised in Morocco, then began to live and write in Paris after attending The Sorbonne. He is bilingual in Arabic and French but writes in French because to him Arabic “is a sacred language, given by God in the shape of the Koran, it is intimidating—one feels very small in front of this language.”
I had read his most well known novel, The Sand Child, some years ago and was struck by a style of story telling that felt foreign to me, but elicited a strong emotional reaction. I realized then how various are the ways stories are told in different cultures and thus how various are the ways life can be lived and approached, just on one little planet.
In The Happy Marriage, perhaps Ben Jelloun is giving us a look at marriage through Moroccan eyes, inclusive of both those who live in the country and those who emigrate to France, as many Moroccans have done. The marriage in his novel is in crisis due to patriarchal views held by the husband, the large difference in age and class between husband and wife, and the relentless encroaching of struggles by women the world over for equal rights.
The book opens a few months after the husband, a famous painter, has suffered a massive stroke. Mostly paralyzed and unable to speak, he is in despair over not having finished his life’s work. He blames the stroke on his wife and their increasingly violent arguments even though he is overweight and had been diagnosed with hypertension some years ago.
The first section is called “The Man Who Loved Women Too Much” and is the painter’s account of his life as told to and recorded by a close friend. This man has had much success as a painter and has been a continuous womanizer since even before his marriage. He thinks quite highly of himself and relates his amorous liaisons contrasted with the recriminations his wife pours on his head.
As I read I began to realize that the painter is both an unreliable narrator as well as a man who feels it is his privilege to live as he pleases, have affairs, travel the world and hoard his money, as long as he gives his wife enough to run the household. They have children whom she is tasked with raising. All he wants from them is their love and adoration.
Also, though the marriage was not arranged and supposedly entered into with love on both sides, the wife is much younger and comes from a small, impoverished Moroccan village. The painter wanted a woman to give him children and the wife wanted to move up in class and affluence. Their two families have never gotten along and this class conflict is a virulent source of trouble for the couple.
One of my favorite novels of 2015 was Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies. Ben Jelloun has used a similar structure for his book with a section from the husband’s viewpoint followed by the wife’s. Also similar are the husband’s obliviousness to the plight of his wife and the wife’s anger over that plight. Different here is the anger exhibited by the wife. Shortly after the birth of their first child she became aware of his infidelities and his stinginess with money and made no secret about her fury. Also different is how entertaining Ben Jelloun manages to be even while the couple wage their battles.
In the second section called ‘My Version of Events,” the wife has discovered and read the manuscript of her husband’s life story. She states, “Before giving you my version of events, I must warn you that I’m nasty. I wasn’t born that way, but when people attack me, I defend myself by any and all means.” Her rage and her willingness to spy on the painter, even to picking the lock to his safe, are beyond bounds. Surely all women get mad at their husbands and dream of ways to retaliate but this one goes ahead and does it! Even so, the husband holds most of the power except for one crucial point.
Though he has told her he wants to end the marriage, she refuses to agree and manages to outwit him with his lawyers. A stalemate of almost a year ensues. Then comes an unexpected ending, so unexpected that my admiration for the author’s insight and sense of irony felt betrayed. On rereading the ends of both partners’ stories though, the admiration returned and increased. Marriage is as fluid as any other aspect of life. It succeeds or fails due to the personalities involved no matter the society or culture. If there is any hope in the novel, it is that a woman empowered has options, even in a fundamentalist country.
Brian Koppelman’s Moment
At the start of every week I always look forward to who Brian Koppelman has interviewed on his podcast The Moment. Lately he’s been killing it. I came upon BK when Marc Maron interviewed him. Podcasting has taken the world by storm, and if you’re like me it is a great source of insightful interviews with creative people you might not ever get access to. Check out: WTF, The Moment with Brian Koppelman, You Must Remember This just to name a few. Oh, and don’t get me started on the brilliance of the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast. I’m not sold on How To Be Amazing with Michael Ian Black, but it is growing on me.
Tony Gilroy: you know this screenwriter from the Bourne movies and if you want to hear a guy talk about screenwriting like it’s writing a novel then listen to this particular podcast. I got out of the film production business in New York City a few years before Michael Clayton was made there and I totally regret it. Listen to Gilroy describe writing a screenplay and coming up with a good idea. It’s total magic. Then go and watch Michael Clayton. To this day I still don’t know how he did it.
Scott Rosenberg; he is the screenwriter of Things to Do In Denver When You’re Dead. I adored that movie and saw it in a little theater on 3rd Avenue the day it came out. Rosenberg adapted High Fidelity and wrote Con Air. Nothing wrong with either of those movies, one’s highbrow the other unibrow. He writes like he means it and is a total professional. BK loves his screenwriters. These first two podcasts are great listens and offer a wonderful insight into the process of screenwriting.
David Lipsky: if you want to know what it is like to be a writer, a dyed in the wool writer then you should listen to this episode. Lipsky interviewed David Foster Wallace for what became the movie The End of the Tour. I don’t truck in DFW, but BK does and that is one of the best things about this podcast. He tells you why he likes the person he is interviewing. I mean really likes them. Lipsky talks candidly about not being able to write a novel after spending time with DFW, and BK throws a hard ball at him and says it might be because of interviewing DFW.
Amy Schumer: forget that she’s since blown up bigger that Catilyn Jenner, and is way better looking. BK digs down on how she made it to where she is. This is his trick, he finds the “moment” when things broke for the people he interviews. It is gold, and worth every second you spend with it. Listening to creative people of all walks of life talking about how they do what they do and why is really fascinating to me.
I could go through and list all the people BK has interviewed on his podcast but I want to direct you to a few episodes that will kick your ass.