Crossing Lake Pontchartrain

Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 2013 “Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.” Ulysses James Joyce   Chapter 1 Hours of silence hatched the noise of urgency. A pleasant Saturday watching baseball without my wife around would soon become a performance of pretense at her friend’s party, where surely four years of my unemployment would be a reliable conversation starter. With a swoop of my jacket, I slammed the screen door with accomplishment, but there it was, as always, the loose post at the end of the front porch. Three steps later, I leveled my best suburban karate kick, leaving the desultory pole dangling over the edge, clinging to the ceiling but without purpose. For my wifely status report, I had indeed addressed a home repair project. The dry leaves of September reminded me of camping with Dad, back when he existed, and I so wanted to drift into those lost weekends. But searching through memory reruns had to wait as I was off to the christening of a nouveau riche mansion. My Saab dashboard clock glared 4:08, already an hour late. Janine would be mad, but I needed to pull into the Good Stuff convenience store for a Barq’s root beer. The fifteen bucks she gave me for gas turned into eight dollars and a brisket panini, Ray Curry’s smoker delicacies again too bewitching to resist. A few back roads, then my last Newport before the long driveway up the highest hill within five miles. Near the top, a switchback slowed me when a black poodle darted from behind a row of azaleas tucked into the steep drop-off. A skid saved his hide, but when I pushed the accelerator, my tires spun on the gravel surface. Car in neutral, drifting slowly backward, I punched into first gear, leaving the fake wood housing around the shifter cracked from front to back. “Crap,” I said, then spit my gum out the window and prayed for at least one good tread. Up top at the far end of the circular drive, a BMW backed out, so I pulled into the slot, hoping the leaping concrete porpoises in the driveway fountain had camouflaged my entrance. The delusion melted as a perfect crowd gathered. Surely, I’d impressed the onlookers with my skillful driving, especially my six-foot-six host, Eric. “Nice job there, Winstead; that last push to the peak is deadly, isn’t it? Tell me, did you have to use oxygen, or did you just suck up the thin air? I bet you just sucked, right?” I stared into the distance, pretending not to hear, my trustworthy sarcasm apparently left at home. From behind the porpoises, Janine flushed a pale smile, and before I could speak, she announced, “Larry has two good job prospects lined up, management jobs; isn’t that great, Eric?” My God, if only I’d brought a cyanide tablet. He looked at Janine as if she’d ordered a double laxative on the rocks and then almost seemed to acknowledge his rudeness, but instincts were stronger than civility. “Well, well, that’s good news, Larr; the little woman seems proud. And I didn’t even know Taco Bonanza was hiring. Heck, with your driving skills, you got home delivery all to yourself.” This moment is why people should not carry hand grenades to parties because I’m fairly sure I would have hurled one at Thor. But the crowd parted as if someone had broken a bottle of red wine, then Eric seized me by the neck. “Only kidding there, sport. You know that.” The thought flashed to kick him where his primary brain sags, but Janine’s bloodless expression insinuated restraint. Then she disappeared into the crowd. Talk about alone—even the gossipers had rushed for cover while Janine sought asylum in the ladies’ room. Not even the dog wanted a sniff. My lifelong skill at faking the truth had mysteriously disappeared, so to avoid the isolation of arrival, I plowed through the crowd, making loops through different rooms, trying to lose among the chandeliers and marble floors my trailing scent of sobriety. Washing my face helped, then I melded into the swarm of people guzzling tequila shots from a line of silver platters atop a white piano. At last, I didn’t feel different, so I focused on my excellent new idea of how a roadkill skunk might end up floating in Eric’s pool. After an hour, Janine and I couldn’t avoid each other any longer, and at the dessert station, we shared stares of survival. A language of wedded indifference carried us through cheesecake and strawberries, and as the sun burned down, we inched towards the car, skulking behind a Gatsby cluster all leaving together. Clara, Janine’s old high school friend and hostess, was not fooled. “Oh, Larry, hold up a moment, please. I want to thank you for coming. I realize you don’t know many people here, but I appreciate your making the effort. We all adore Janine so; it’s nice to see she has such a loving husband to support her.” My eyes rolled back as the tequila continued pickling my brainstem, but resident charm seized control. “No problem, Clar, enjoyed the hospitality. Your husband already made me feel quite special.” Those words slipped from my mouth accidentally as I thought I was only talking to myself, but with rescuer’s response, Janine intruded between her friend and me. “Yes, about that,” Clara said. “I heard Eric, and I want to apologize; he’d had a little too much margarita, I’m afraid. You understand he was only kidding. He’s a super-kind person, and at the country club, he gives the caddies the biggest tips.” Words seemed to fail her as she lost momentum in mid-thought, her eyes studying the loose stones of the driveway. Unfortunately, my brain wasn’t in full communication with my mouth, which in the absence of restraint, made a run for freedom. So, I sidestepped Janine’s protection, then offered one last note of appreciation: “Sure, Clar, no problem. Maybe next Saturday I can lug his clubs around; you know, earn a few bucks myself. . .” Janine jousted me towards the car, and I heard a blur of “thanks” and “see you soon” as I slid into the front passenger seat. The stuffy air almost made me gag before I cracked the window enough to catch a little breeze, but regretfully also to hear Janine’s last words to Clara. “Oh, it’s Larry. He drinks too much. . .” I looked to see if Janine would offer me a glance. She did, a laser shot from emblazoned blue eyes, a would-be terminator unmasked in Hattiesburg. I’d only come to show her friends how I was changing my life, and yet something predictable had occurred. I rolled up the window, not wanting to hear my life anymore. The thud of distant music hammered, and without warning, an image of my grandfather popped into my head. He’d dropped by the house on my sixteenth birthday to give me his old shotgun, and there in his left eye was a peering void I’d not seen before, a darkness that scared me, though I wasn’t sure why. Two weeks later, he died without warning. Today, Janine’s empty stare brought back that kindred knowledge of having looked through the pane shielding one life from another, encasing the secret dark matter of separateness. That glare penetrated me, searching for those unspoken things I’d meant to tell her but didn’t, those withholdings I’d postponed without realizing. The drive home quivered in the escapist blur of alcohol, but I’d glimpsed Janine’s secret. Farms slipped past as dim forms, silhouettes languishing without sun, mildly aware of approaching winter; and through the Mississippi countryside, my wife and I traveled into the dusk of separated silence, alone, yet not. Violence awaited me. Not puerile hitting or pushing—oh, if only. The lid to a long-sealed vault had shifted on the day’s blunder, releasing within me a highly charged imbalance to merge with Janine’s fury.