of bed, the pain from my battered knees immediately shoving me back down like a rough hand. “What is this, do-what-you-think-you-need-to-do-to-satisfy-your-needs shit? Zen? Leo! Don’t you give a shit what happens to us? To this house? To the holy tomato plants?”
“It’s all immaterial,” Leo said, lying back against his astronaut-foam pillow. “The material is immaterial.” He grinned. “I just said that to getcha, Jules. You know I care about all that stuff. But you can handle it. You’re a very capable woman. We have a lawn-care service. You have a strong support system of good friends. You have my parents. And a creative outlet. Sufficient money for all the face cream you’ll need. The children will help. I’m not worried. And I’ll be in constant touch.”
He had not been in constant touch. He had not been in touch at all. He had not left an itinerary, explaining that his travels might take him to people in one location where they lived, or in another, though he’d insisted that the big, brown envelope he’d given me contained a detailed list of addresses and telephone numbers where he could be reached or where messages could be left. There was none. All it had really contained were copies of our wills and insurance papers, the number of the pager he had purchased to augment his cell phone, and a funny card, a line drawing of a guy in a little car driving in circles, signed with love to me. “I have friends in Wyoming who live in the mountains in the summer, because the cabins they have aren’t plumbed, but rent in town during the winter, where they do whatever kind of skilled work can take them over the tourist season, when they don’t want to go near the town, unless they sell art….”
“What makes you think I give a shit about any of this, Leo?”
He’d seemed genuinely puzzled.
“As if I give a good goddamn what a bunch of selfish, aging drifters do for seasonal work. You want to know something? Personally, that kind of life sounds worse to me than…than camping.” Leo knew I considered camping a sin not for but against nature, a form of primitive subjugation disguised as recreation, a way for men to beat their chests at the dawning and women to wash the same dishes fifteen times a day, and with sand. “What would you do with your things, while you were slipping back and forth between worlds? Between the town and the mountains? Your clothes and books?”
“Libraries have books, Jules. And most people don’t have our clothing needs. You realize that most people who work at home don’t need twenty pairs of shoes, nine of which—”
“Are black, right, Leo. You’ve only told me that fifty times. But I also give speeches, and I’m on the board of the theater, and I have a life with friends, for which I need clothing. I’m not going to debate this with you, Leo, as if I were Imelda Marcos and you were Gandhi. Neither of those things is true. Do you realize that if you hadn’t got your golden parachute, or whatever—”
“Hardly,” Leo said dryly.
“Well, your silver parachute from the university, from taxpayers, Leo, you wouldn’t be free to play out this little game, this little midlife Ulysses crap. You aren’t like those people with the bandanas, Leo. You might want to be, but you’re a guy with a degree in business, a corporate lawyer, who sucked off the public tit….”
“That would distress me, if I were listening, Jules,” he said, and yawned. I knew he was faking the yawn. “How I feel is, I did my time. I tried to do some good for others. I know I did some good for a few. But I didn’t do myself any good, slugging down handfuls of Tagamet, living without passion—”
“Living without passion?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I didn’t either,” I said. “I’m not talking about whether our sex lives conform to the numerical national average, Lee. I’m talking about passion for these three people named Gabriel, Caroline, and Aurora
“It’s all immaterial,” Leo said, lying back against his astronaut-foam pillow. “The material is immaterial.” He grinned. “I just said that to getcha, Jules. You know I care about all that stuff. But you can handle it. You’re a very capable woman. We have a lawn-care service. You have a strong support system of good friends. You have my parents. And a creative outlet. Sufficient money for all the face cream you’ll need. The children will help. I’m not worried. And I’ll be in constant touch.”
He had not been in constant touch. He had not been in touch at all. He had not left an itinerary, explaining that his travels might take him to people in one location where they lived, or in another, though he’d insisted that the big, brown envelope he’d given me contained a detailed list of addresses and telephone numbers where he could be reached or where messages could be left. There was none. All it had really contained were copies of our wills and insurance papers, the number of the pager he had purchased to augment his cell phone, and a funny card, a line drawing of a guy in a little car driving in circles, signed with love to me. “I have friends in Wyoming who live in the mountains in the summer, because the cabins they have aren’t plumbed, but rent in town during the winter, where they do whatever kind of skilled work can take them over the tourist season, when they don’t want to go near the town, unless they sell art….”
“What makes you think I give a shit about any of this, Leo?”
He’d seemed genuinely puzzled.
“As if I give a good goddamn what a bunch of selfish, aging drifters do for seasonal work. You want to know something? Personally, that kind of life sounds worse to me than…than camping.” Leo knew I considered camping a sin not for but against nature, a form of primitive subjugation disguised as recreation, a way for men to beat their chests at the dawning and women to wash the same dishes fifteen times a day, and with sand. “What would you do with your things, while you were slipping back and forth between worlds? Between the town and the mountains? Your clothes and books?”
“Libraries have books, Jules. And most people don’t have our clothing needs. You realize that most people who work at home don’t need twenty pairs of shoes, nine of which—”
“Are black, right, Leo. You’ve only told me that fifty times. But I also give speeches, and I’m on the board of the theater, and I have a life with friends, for which I need clothing. I’m not going to debate this with you, Leo, as if I were Imelda Marcos and you were Gandhi. Neither of those things is true. Do you realize that if you hadn’t got your golden parachute, or whatever—”
“Hardly,” Leo said dryly.
“Well, your silver parachute from the university, from taxpayers, Leo, you wouldn’t be free to play out this little game, this little midlife Ulysses crap. You aren’t like those people with the bandanas, Leo. You might want to be, but you’re a guy with a degree in business, a corporate lawyer, who sucked off the public tit….”
“That would distress me, if I were listening, Jules,” he said, and yawned. I knew he was faking the yawn. “How I feel is, I did my time. I tried to do some good for others. I know I did some good for a few. But I didn’t do myself any good, slugging down handfuls of Tagamet, living without passion—”
“Living without passion?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I didn’t either,” I said. “I’m not talking about whether our sex lives conform to the numerical national average, Lee. I’m talking about passion for these three people named Gabriel, Caroline, and Aurora
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