Frederick Busch - The Stories of Frederick Busch

“You can borrow it,” he said.

“What?”

“You can keep the diary awhile. I have xeroxes. I figured you’d want to see the real thing.”

“Oh. Thank you, Gene. But why?”

“They can’t get away with it,” he said.

“For the sake of argument,” I said, “why not?”

“Because it’s wrong. That’s why I wanted you to know. I want it stopped, Sharon.”

“You’re asking me to stop Sam from—”

He said, “Please?”

I can’t believe S! Silly-billy lover! Put the tube of jelly in his hand and he just held it. Asked me what it was for. Looked at me the way he does. I think I got wetter. He said O Boy. My boy lover. O Boy.

S says Sh frigid for months. How about those stories about her? Backseats and motels and quickies in cars? S says S wouldn’t know where to put a cock without the instruction book. Here’s what I told him — Lie down. He knew what I meant.

S thinks his daughter smokes pot. Got to talking, asked if he ever tried it, S surprised. Said I heard a good high gives great orgasms. We’ll try it together if we can get some. Stay young . It’s the ticket. Keep your body good and your lover crazy.

Gene growling like a dog these days. He smells it. Dogs can smell it on you.

You can’t belong to other people. You have to belong to yourself. You have to love yourself. Then other people.

When S comes, his balls jump. Mexican Jumping Balls. S phones up and says Cucaracha! Makes me think of his balls. My lover’s balls.

When I showed him the page after page of round, uncertain handwriting, Sam slapped the book from my fingers. I thought of Gene beating on Valerie and wondered if it was my turn. I said, “If you hit me, I might end up killing you, Sam.”

He said, “I’ll bear that contingency in mind.”

“You understand, of course, that she’s using you — this thing — affair — relationship—”

“Don’t smirk, Sharon. Or I will hit you. And then you’ll have to kill me, remember. And your mother will raise Joanna in Cleveland while you’re a gray-haired convict. And for Christ’s sake don’t tell me about any other woman using adultery against her husband!”

“You think this is about ‘adultery,’ Sam? Your balls are jumping so high, they’re blocking your vision.”

“My balls? ”

I retrieved the diary and painstakingly found the page for him.

Which brings me to Joanna, whom I had to hold and talk to after Sam, that night, took a room at the Valley Rest Motel, which is on the southern end of town. She let me talk, but she had no mercy for my need to hold. She twitched away from me that night. She paced the living room, touched the lampshades, prodded at books, moved records and discs on their shelves. She plucked at her hair and bunched her lips in disgust.

“You know what they’ll say about Daddy? Big banker-man Daddy? They’ll say, ‘Old Sam Edel’s been punching the town bag.’” She looked at me pointedly and then she looked away. “You know how humiliating this is?” She looked at me again and cried, “Oh, of course you do!” Her pale, imperious face went soft, and she ran to me like a fugitive from Giselle . We hugged. By the time I decided it was safe to close my eyes and enjoy what I could, her lean body had gone hard. “That bitch ,” she whispered.

She endured my rubbing at her hair, and even my kisses. When I explained that her father might really be gone, she simply nodded. “He’s angry,” I said. “He’s not a happy man. But he adores you, Joanna.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “A guy’ll tell you love all you want. They say it a lot. It’s like at a hockey match. They sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ they look like nice kids, and then they beat the shit out of each other. It’s a guy thing. I’m just not that terribly impressed. I love you. Right. Thanks ever so much.”

“Oh, he means it, darling.”

“Ma,” my fourteen-year-old daughter instructed me, “they all mean it.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll be all right,” she said, like an older aunt, embracing me again. It was later, after the buttered popcorn, that she asked me to confirm the requirement under law that her father, once divorced from me, had to help pay her way through college. On behalf of the lawyer I hadn’t consulted yet, I guaranteed. It was really then, as I promised Joanna her future, that I began to feel the fractures of our collapse.

S makes me feel worshipped. Says all women before me were girls. Kneels and kisses his way up my legs. Chews at me. I am my lover’s food and he is mine. We were starving, but now we nourish each other.

Sam was still away two days later. We spoke coldly on the telephone. I said I’d be out of the house one morning so he could come for clothes. He agreed to a transfer of money from the joint account to my household account. I suggested that we get in touch with lawyers. He was silent for an instant, and then he hung up.

As I walked from the phone, it rang, and I formulated something chilly and not too intimate with which to greet him. But it wasn’t Sam. It was the aqua-colored voice.

She said, “Mrs. Edel?”

“This is Sharon, Valerie. I recognize your voice. How are you?”

“Mrs. Edel—”

“Honey,” I said, “you’re screwing a man who’s been married to me for fifteen years, so you can get your nutritious ass down off of your high horse and talk straight a little. You don’t want to go around sounding like the district manager for Amway, do you?”

“I want your little snot bitch of a daughter to stop it. Now. And I mean it. That straight enough for you? Honey?”

“If my daughter — you better watch your mouth about her, Valerie. If there is a problem concerning my daughter, please feel as free as possibly only you can feel to tell me all about it.”

“You’re a possessive, dried-up prude, Sharon. So if he wanders to the warmer climates—”

“I’d call you a tropical rain forest in that case, Valerie. What about my daughter?”

“Tell her to stop stuffing every mailbox she can reach with her letter about me . That’s what about her.”

She hung up. I wondered if she and Sam had decided jointly to hang up on me that day. I went to our empty mailbox and looked across the street, then down our side of the block, and I saw the little white protrusions. As if I were entitled to, I went to my neighbors’ house, withdrew the single white page from the box on their porch, and carried it home in clear view, not like a thief but as a citizen bearing the news.

Dear Occupant,

As you may have heard, my father, Mr. Samuel Edel and my mother, Ms. Sharon Hilsinger Edel have separated. Whether that is temporary or permanent, is not yet known. I’m sure the ever reliable town grapevine will let you know as soon as we do.

This is to set the record straight and do away with the rumors and innuendos. My father, Samuel Edel has been having an “affair” with a brainless slut named Ms. Valerie McClatchey. Otherwise known as “The Town Bag.” I hear that men of Mr. Edel’s age often do things like this e.i. getting oversexed and horny if their wives are getting somewhat mature. That is no excuse. However, I’ve been hearing vicious gossip that my mother, Ms. Edel pushed him into this type of “activity” by something she did. That is a lie. Mr. Edel went “sex mad” as many men do and broke his sacred marriage vows. He did it on his own e.i. leaving our bed and board. Ms. Edel is a right on woman. She did nothing wrong in this. I gladly put my reputation on the line to say this.

Mr. Edel will have to answer to heaven along with Ms. McClatchey.

Thank you for your time and attention.