Eileen Gunn: Questionable Practices

The few days became a week, and the rain continued. It was a lot of work, just to get water and roots and dry wood for fuel. I always liked to camp out, but then I had those packets of freeze-dried shit. The week became several, and then a month. But I will never complain about rainy weather again. It was the happiest time of my life, at least to date: two women, both of them great in bed, and each of them devoted to me.

Though, clearly, Mickey was a lot more devoted than Andrea. This is completely understandable, and I don’t fault Andrea for it in the least. She was much more the modern woman, with her complaints, and, let’s face it, her neurotic shit. There are consequences for that, is all. I totally support her in her struggle for getting a handle on what goes on between men and women, I just think she’s taking her own sweet time at it.

I asked Mickey a few times about the people who were there that first night. Who were they? Where are they? How come they don’t come around at all, and she said they were giving us the time we needed to create our family, our oneness. And this made sense, though I did feel I was getting the shut-up explanation. I mean, it’s no skin off my ass if her friends don’t want to come around and see us. Really. What do I care?

But they never did come around during the daytime. Or even at night, except that once. And we were there for, well, it was nearly six weeks, I think. We stayed — and I would have stayed longer, let me be clear about it — until Andrea started throwing up and said she thought she was pregnant.

I tried to convince her that this was no problem. Lots of women give birth at home, away from hospitals, but she wasn’t hearing any of this. She said she had to go home, she had to get hold of her mother, and she had to have some answers. Naturally, I thought the answers thing meant she’d finally decided that it wasn’t okay about me and Mickey, but that wasn’t what Andrea meant at all.

Turns out she’d been stewing on this wonky idea that her mother was some kind of alien or something, and that she was in like psychic communication with her. Fuck. Andrea’s mother is the least-psychic middle-aged woman I have ever met. She’s all business, she’s an accountant or something, and she always treats me as though I had a communicable disease, which I’m quite sure I don’t have, and if I did, she’d be the last person I’d give it to.

When Andrea told me she was pregnant and wanted to go home, I confess I had to think about it for a little. Not that I wouldn’t have taken her home, but I needed to think about what I would say to Mickey, and whether I would want to come back to the cave after taking Andrea home. On the other hand, Andrea and her child were my responsibility too, and it’s funny how, well, connected I felt to her, knowing it was my kid she was pregnant with.

When I talked to Mickey, it turned out she was very cool with it and didn’t seem surprised or hurt. Kind of the ideal woman.

And then she told me that she might be pregnant too. As you might imagine, this was both a pleasure and a shock. Two babies? I was always aware that unprotected sex could create a baby: I was completely with that program. But I confess I hadn’t considered the idea that unprotected sex could create two babies in a month.

Okay, okay, it was dumb of me. I hadn’t thought it through, okay? But I can tell you I was pretty proud of myself. Or at least that was my first reaction. And then I thought, well, I am going to have to get a job.

But the women, Andrea and Mickey, were so much more practical. With them, it was always, what am I going to do now? Andrea was for going home to her mother, and Mickey was for staying there in the cave and giving birth all alone by herself.

This was a little too close to the mama-bear-baby-bear thing for me, but Mickey seemed so at home with the idea, it seemed to make sense to me as a solution. Only it wasn’t one, was it?

So when Andrea told me that she wanted to go back to the city, I figured I’d take her there and then come back to be with Mickey. After all, Andrea has her mother, right? And Mickey hasn’t got anybody, since her friends — her supposed friends, the useless twats — never come around.

I tell this to Mickey, figuring it’ll make her feel better. Instead, she goes all weird on me. Like, we’ve never fought. We’ve never even disagreed. But all of a sudden, she’s like, “How could you?” As if I’m some monster because I want to stay with her.

“Andrea will need you,” she says. “How could you leave her at a time like this?”

“Her mother will take care of her,” I say, wondering what the big deal is. “Her mother will, in fact, take much better care of her than I could.”

“That old bat?” says Mickey. “She can scarcely feed herself. She can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. Look what happened to Andrea, under her care.”

“What? What happened to Andrea?”

“She was running wild, and Lord knows what all. She got involved with you .”

My feelings were hurt, but I wasn’t inclined to let her know that. “So did you.”

“That’s different. I can take care of myself. I know what I want and how to get it. But Andrea just sleepwalks though life, accepting whatever is handed to her, not taking charge. Somebody needs to take charge.”

“Excuse me for not grasping your point here, but what’s your point? If I’m such a dolt, how come you want me to take care of Andrea and the baby?”

“That’s a very good question, Christy. But I’m not going to answer it just now. You just get her out of here and get her back to Seattle safely. Can you do that?”

Yeah, I could do that, and I did. But the price of that is I was shut out of Mickey’s life. She made it clear she wanted me out, and I didn’t need to come back.

Andrea

As we left, I was not sure whether I was going home or leaving it, going out into a strange and dangerous world. I wasn’t anxious to go back to the city with Christy. Would he and I stay together? I didn’t want to be with him, but I had to worry about having a baby by myself and taking care of it.

I understood Christy better than I ever had before, but I didn’t like what I understood. Never had, I guess, but when it was just me, it didn’t seem so important, as long as life was interesting. Maybe I hate being bored almost as much as Christy.

We slogged down the side of the mountain, carrying our skis. It was a pleasant-enough spring day, a little overcast. The snow was long gone, and the trees were starting to bud green. There was skunk cabbage poking up in the wet places, and some little white flowers here and there. What were they? I couldn’t remember. As we walked, everything that had happened in the past six weeks seemed like an extended dream.

It was a hassle getting down to the car, because the fire road in some places was pretty soggy. When we got down to the main road and looked for our car, of course it was gone. “Forest Service towed it, babe,” said Christy. Well, duh. We started walking, and after a few miles we got a lift from a guy in a pickup truck.

“Mud skiing?” the guy says when he stops, nodding at our skis. A humorist.

Christy says, “We been up the mountain for a while.”

“Whoa,” said the guy. “Are you those two skiers vanished a month ago? You’re alive?”

“Six weeks ago,” said Christy, “but who’s counting? I think we’re alive.”

“Rescue copters were over here for three days, combing the area. How do you feel? Need water? Something to eat? You want me to drive you to a hospital?”

“I just want to get my car back, man. I need to get my girlfriend here to her mom’s house. She’s pregnant. My girlfriend, I mean.”