I’m an intelligent person, you know. I’m not a fool. I’m smart, and rational, and logical. I’m a CPA, for heaven’s sake! I have a good tax and bookkeeping business built up; I have clients who trust and respect me, and I do good work. I’m in full possession of my faculties, and though I do admit to chronic pathological shyness, I’m still a very normal person.
It’s just that where Mack was concerned, that rational part of me seemed to shrug its shoulders, and go sit in a corner reading the newspaper, and give full control to my emotional side. I don’t know why, I have no idea why. But the problem was that this arrangement was not a problem. It drew no resistance. I knew full well I was being irrational, following my heart instead of my head, and not listening to reason. Not that reason ever spoke up, mind you. It kept silent, and let emotion take over completely. I really had no choice in this matter. My mind had abnegated responsibility, it had temporarily resigned, and there was nothing to be done about it. I had no recourse, I did not protest.
To tell the truth, it felt good. It felt good to slide into a whole different mode of operation. I surrendered to my emotions. I let them control my actions. And there were no nagging doubts or whispers from my brain (it had finished reading the paper and was now off playing pool somewhere). I think it lost its watch. I didn’t know when it would return. If it would return. I didn’t care.
Time with Mack was all that mattered. And suddenly, three was a crowd. Maggie’s presence, so welcome for a while, now felt like an intrusion.
Deviousness had never surfaced in my nature before, but suddenly I was filled with cunning, and in the space of silence that followed Mack’s decision to stay, I craftily asked Maggie who was taking care of her girls.
“Oh! My girls! I told Mom I’d bring you this soup and be right back!” She sprang up as if she’d been catapulted out of a trance, and I got beside her, giving agreement to her quick sentences as I led the way to the kitchen door and practically pushed her out.
I closed the door, and leaned my back against it.
“Alone at last,” murmured Mack.
It was exactly what I bad been thinking! I cleared my throat – and suddenly wondered why everyone around Mack seemed to do that. Now I was doing it, too. I did it again.
“Well, what would you like to do today, Mack?” (I spoke his name with proprietary familiarity. I really liked his name. I liked to say it out loud.) “Anything special?”
Mack shook his head. Slowly, of course. And shrugged. Slightly.
And then it popped out. From some deep recess of my brain that was normally unused – or guarded – came the question I had stored away after practicing it so many times. It didn’t even ask permission, or give notice of intention, and so my censor was caught unawares, unable to put on the brake until it was too late. “Would you care to go to the movies with me?”
And – glory be – this time I felt the way I had prayed so hard to feel, had tried to talk myself into feeling. I was comfortable. I wasn’t blushing – not even a little! And I was smiling! I had done it! And I wasn’t even holding my breath for the answer, I was calm and unruffled. I was nonchalant! Like it was the most natural thing in the world. There was no fear, no desperate courage. Because it wasn’t a female I was talking to. It was Mack. Just my friend Mack. I don’t think he expected the invitation; he didn’t have his guard up, either. He smiled and said yes. Said yes, he’d like that. He hadn’t been to the movies in a long, long time. “Just once, though. Just this once. Remember what I said.”
“Sure, Mack. Sure. Anything you say.”
Well, there was supper to consider, too. Would he stay for supper? Yes. Just this once, though. Sure Mack. No problem. Just this once.
Living in the moment is something I had read about, but didn’t do, and didn’t concern myself with, though it sounded like a pleasant idea. Now, here with Mack, I fell into it with the grace and familiarity of a Zen master. With Mack there was no future. He wouldn’t be here long. I had no idea when he would leave, and I didn’t need to know. There was no past – he hadn’t existed for me before yesterday. And that short past was nowhere in my consciousness. Our short future was nowhere in my consciousness. All there was, was now. All there was, was Mack – the blink of his gentle eye, the curve of his hollowed jaw, the shape of his fingernails. The stillness as he sat, unmoving, at my kitchen table, and the quiet efficiency of my slow, easy moves as I casually walked around my kitchen, considering possible recipes, and checking shelves and bins for ingredients. I felt every movement, every reach of arm, every step, even the separate components of each action as they flowed together – the leisurely reach of a hand, the contact with the handle of the cabinet, the grasping of fingers, and the tiny tug to open the door. The gradual revelation of riches in the form of cans and jars and bottles of spices. Had I ever noticed before the charm of their colors, the artistry of their placement? And I moved about the radius of the kitchen in quiet joy, with Mack sitting at the table in its center – the sun in the middle of my noonday sky.
It was Mack who broke the spell. He got up out of the chair and walked away from me, muttered something about his clothes.
His clothes. Of course. That was the reason he was staying. I was supposed to be washing and drying his clothes so he could leave.
He was on his way upstairs. I hurried after him, and caught up when he was entering the bathroom. His things were soaking in the tub. I was alarmed by how awful he looked – that haggardness that seemed to come on so quickly and so completely. It really was peculiar. And why now? Five minutes ago we had been happy and at peace in the kitchen, and now Dr. Jekyll had turned into Mr. Hyde. I insisted he lie down, on the bed. He really did look seriously awful. He protested feebly, but I wouldn’t listen.
I yanked up the spread and he lay on top of it. He lay on his side, and drew up his knees, and turned his face down into the pillow. He covered his head with his bent arm – a position of despair. A position of withdrawal. Concerned but helpless, I closed the door, and went into the bathroom. I gathered up his wet things, wrung them out, and carried them into the hallway. I paused at his door and put my ear to the crack. There was no sound. I went downstairs, put the clothes in the washer and let it do its job.
He slept about an hour and a half. When he came down he still looked bad. I heated Maggie’s chicken soup and we shared it for lunch. He ate about six spoonfuls – barely enough to keep a bird alive. He didn’t want the tomato juice.
I hadn’t forgotten about the movies. There was a matinee at the local theater. I thought maybe it would cheer him up, take his mind off his problems, though deep inside I knew full well that whatever was troubling Mack – whatever it was that, when he remembered it, changed him into a sick, sad old man – was something that going to a movie was not going to touch. Did he still want to go anyway?
Something inside made him answer yes, he had agreed to be my guest, he had made a commitment to accompany me. And he would do so. These things he did not say out loud, but I saw him think them. I felt him feel them. He would come with me.
Our “date” was a total disaster. I don’t even remember what movie we saw. But I do remember the ticket lady (who was all of eighty if she was a day) ogling Mack like a love-struck schoolgirl. When I turned to him it occurred to me that she might have actually thought he was in her age bracket, he looked that bad. And I don’t understand how Mack could attract the college-age couple in the lobby when he looked like death warmed over – if that good. They were coming towards us with fixed stares. I saw Mack turn his head away, hunch his shoulders, and wait like a poor dumb ox for the butcher’s blade. A fierce protectiveness came over me, and I placed my body in their path, shielding him from them – or was it them from him? I hustled Mack into the darkened theater, where the previews were already in progress. I resisted the urge to put my arm around his shoulders.
We found seats; I chose an unpopulated sector of the theater, but soon we had to change, because two women got up from where they were sitting and planted themselves exactly behind us. They were whispering loud enough to wake the dead. Whispering about Mack. We changed seats, moving to the very back row.
By this time I had completely lost what little I had comprehended of the movie, and I gave up trying to watch at all.
In his seat beside me, in the dark, I could feel Mack shrinking – collapsing into himself like a dying star turning into a black hole. His gravity increased, and he sucked all light, all energy, all matter into himself, and there it was compressed by the weight of his grief until it disappeared from this plane of existence.
I was now fighting for my life. I clenched the arm of the seat, hardening my muscles against the pull of his blackness. But it was no use.
The rest of the movie passed before my shell-shocked eyes. When the lights came on I mechanically followed the flow of people out, and I don’t remember going to the car. I don’t remember driving home. All I do remember is pulling into the driveway and seeing Maggie sitting on the side porch steps. I grabbed that vision with the last desperate strength of a drowning man seeing a life preserver floating by. Her bright red dress seemed to give my eyes something concrete, something vibrant and bright, to focus on, to pull myself up out of this depression. I let us in. Mack walked dully past her into the sitting room and turned on the TV.
“What’s the matter with him now?”
There was no need to ask who ‘him’ was. “I wish I knew.”
“What happened?”
“I took him to the movies.”
“And . . . “
“People bothered him. You know. But he was down before that. I don’t know why.”
“Yeah.”
“It seemed to start when we were here in the kitchen, and I was thinking about what to make him for supper, and checking to see if I needed to go to the store for anything. You know, just a nice, friendly . . . I don’t know.”
“Yeah.” She seemed to understand. “You got any booze in the house?”
“Wine. And some scotch in the living room.”
“Don’t offer him any.”
“I know.”
“Hide the bottles.”
“You think?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
She glanced toward the sitting room. We could hear canned laughter on TV; the sound was up quite loud. “He looks like my – like this guy I used to know who was a terrible alcoholic. He drank vanilla extract, cold medicine. Weird shit like that.”
I winced. Mandy could be crude.
“I don’t think he’d do that.”
“He looks like hell.”
I was overdue feeding The Boys, and set to work getting bowls and opening cans. I set the dishes on the floor and sighed. They dug in. I patted cat backs briefly, then straightened. “Maybe if I feed him. He’s had almost nothing to eat all day.”
“Yeah. Maybe that would help.” We both knew it wouldn’t. Maggie stooped to pet the cats. They don’t like to be petted while they’re eating, but I didn’t say anything. When she stood up she faced me and touched my sleeve. My whole arm jerked.
“Doug . . . you’re my friend, aren’t you?”
Warning bells were clanging in my head. She bent her face closer to mine, trying to catch my eye. Her eyes were over-bright, too-alert, like a hungry animal. Uncomfortable, wary, I looked away, and nodded. What was she after?
“Good. Because I need your help. I need you to invite me to spend the night. I’m going to sleep with Mack. Tonight.”
Jesus God!! I began to burn all over, and broke out in a sweat. Maggie bulldozed on.
“You’ll help me, won’t you, Doug? I set up the girls at Mom’s, I took care of everything. I switched work with another woman for tonight and tomorrow.
No. No no no no no no no.
“All right, Doug?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks, Doug . You’re one in a million.” She leaned quickly toward me, and before I could pull away she pecked me on the cheek. She sped out the door toward the sound of the TV.
Alone, I leaned against the counter, and let my neck droop between my shoulders. How dare she? How dare she! Filed with outrage, I gripped the edge of the counter like a madman.
She couldn’t! She just couldn’t! I couldn’t believe this was happening! How could she do this to him! Couldn’t she see how depressed he was? Couldn’t she see that he wouldn’t, didn’t – didn’t want that? Couldn’t she see what a mistake she was making? Why, he was sick, he wasn’t eating, he needed rest and care. Couldn’t she see that?
Couldn’t she see that he was mine?
“Doug!”
It was almost a shout. I whirled to see Maggie leaning in the doorway, one hand braced on each side of the frame.
“What?!”
“He’s gone!”
