Robert Coover - John's Wife

Opal was proud of her son and loved the park he built, wishing her grandchildren were still small so she could bring them to it, as she used to take them to the old one and her own little boy before them. Oh so long ago. The statue of the Old Pioneer had been rescued from the civic center parking lot and given a nice new pedestal and, though you had to crane your neck to look up at it, it was like having an old lost friend back home again. She missed the old bandstand and the performances there and the family picnics and the summertime speeches her handsome brother used to give, but her husband Mitch, at her urging, had donated a dozen benches in memory of members of the family and old political friends, and they were not as comfortable as the old ones perhaps, but they made her very happy. She liked to sit in them, half dozing in the sun, and watch the children play, letting the past wash over her like a loving embrace, and she often found herself being asked to mind this one or that one for a moment while their mothers dashed off on errands, something she was pleased to do, for it made her feel wanted again. It was so much nicer than the malls, which had no trees or benches at all and no neighborliness either, whatever Kate might say. One day, she found herself sitting on one of the roomier contoured benches of the old city park with that dear friend and with Harriet, too, one on each side. It seemed that Audrey had recently died and they were talking about this, Opal understanding that her friends were really congratulating her on the Audrey inside her having died, since if they were still alive Audrey must be, too. Nonsense! snorted Harriet, and Kate said that, yes, life was, that was what made it so sad. And so beautiful. They saw the young stringy-haired newspaper editor coming their way with a camera, looking sheepish, and Opal exclaimed: All this has happened before! Kate smiled and said, Yes, no doubt, probably everything has. Harriet smiled her own ironic smile and said that the one thing she had no doubts about was that nothing ever happened twice. Opal realized that this conundrum her friends had posed on either side of her and the distinctive smiles on their two lovely faces there in the dappled sunlight were the last things she would see or know before she died, and she felt a pang of grief, and a pang of love.

Ah well, grief, love, sometimes it was hard to tell them apart, so profoundly bound up in one another were they, for no mortal love was free from death nor death’s grief from a grievous love of self. When Yale was killed in the war, Oxford, though paralyzed with a sudden despair that dropped him to his knees, realized that he’d been suffering the loss of his beloved son from the day he was born, and that he’d cherished that suffering. In her suicide note three years later, his cancer-stricken wife Kate wrote: “Why we turn against reason, Oxford, is because it tells us we can never have the one deathless thing we most desire and that all our lesser loves must end in sorrow. It’s almost unreasonable to be reasonable. I love you, Oxford, but can express this now only by inflicting grief upon you, which, alas, I find I would do with pleasure. And so I deny my love and mourn only myself. My own grief satisfies me and, as you are no longer loved — indeed, you no longer even exist for me — you are freed from all mournful thought of me, who certainly does not exist, unless grieving gives you joy.” He’d thought it a cruel letter at the time, but had come to understand that wise Kate had loved him with a rare transcendental love and had found a way, while dying, to express it, and then the tears had come afresh, self-pitying tears, of course, at what he’d lost. For Kate’s friend Harriet, who’d died a couple of years earlier, tears were nothing but a sales hook for the entertainment racket, though she’d happily shed plenty over books and in the movies, if seldom in life. “Meat’s meat,” she always said dismissively. “It has its needs, but you can’t take them seriously,” and her husband Alf, whose hands were daily busied by needful flesh, agreed — until he held her trembling hands in his (“Hey, do you remember when …?” he’d murmured awkwardly) and felt the life go out and knew then that what he’d loved, though rooted in the self, was not the self. Over the years since then, Alf had found some consolation in the healing of others, or at least in the easing of pain, his own included, bourbon being his usual self-prescription, just as Oxford had consoled himself with his multitudinous grandchildren (at least two more now on the way), the two men meeting most mornings for coffee in the Sixth Street Cafe to exchange thoughts on such topics as love and grief and also the news of the day, which on this particular occasion had to do with the building of the new racetrack (“Coming Soon: The Sport of Kings!” was the headline in the Crier ), the old bones found out at Settler’s Woods which Alf had been asked to examine, the return of Alf’s nephew, a high school classmate of John’s, to run John’s new international transport firm, recent rumors about the hardware store next door, closed since Old Hoot fled town (there was a business associate of John’s visiting from the West Coast this week, she said to be a high-tech hotshot), the surprise marriage announcement of old Stu’s widow, and the decision of Oxford’s daughter, who was also Alf’s nurse, to go back to school and complete her degree, which Alf, generously, offered to help pay for. John’s wife, walking her dogs, passed by the cafe window just then, reminding Alf to tell Oxford about the strange sensation he’d had at the tip of his finger and how it had vanished, but before he could get to it, Trevor the insurance agent came limping in and joined them briefly with a cup of soup which he spooned up hastily with quaking hands, and then as quickly got up to go. There were dark bags under his eye and eyepatch and what looked like bruises on his face and neck. “Are you all right, Trevor?” Alf asked. “I–I’m not sleeping well.” “I’ll give you a prescription.” “No. It won’t help.” He ducked his head, tugging at the cuffs of his linen suit. “It’s all right,” he said. He squinted at them with his good eye, then leaned closer. “It’s a lucky life to have known delight,” he whispered, his soft lips quivering. “Isn’t it?” “He’s suffering from delusions,” Alf explained when Trevor left, as though that explained anything at all.

“Oh, I know, honey, I was just kidding myself, it was a big mistake, but he said he loved me and that big booger between his legs was as hard as brass and all mine, so how could I help it? I’m basically a nice person, you know that, but it was all I could think about, it was driving me crazy and I did crazy things. I still think about it, all the time, but now I have to help him find it. It’s awful, but what can I do? He owns half the garage, I can’t get out of it, I can only hope to hell the pathetic sonuvabitch falls out of his bed and dies. That fitness freak you’re so crazy about who gave him the kiss of life can kiss my ass, goddamn her. Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone? Isn’t that Brucieboy’s girlfriend? If so, I wish to hell he’d come back and claim her. She knows Rex from somewhere and keeps butting in, watching over him like he’s her kid brother or something, it really gets my goat. The chilly bitch says she doesn’t trust me, and when he comes home from the hospital, I’m afraid she’s going to move in on us. Do you think she’s trying to get a piece of the action? Probably, hunh? What a mess. And he’s so mean to me! Honest to God, it’s the worst thing that’s happened to me since back during my first marriage when I was playing around and got that infected lovebite on the ass. You remember? Thought I’d die. Why the hell was Rex driving John’s car anyway? Oh, I don’t blame your daughter, poor thing, she’s suffered enough. No, it was Winnie’s fault, I’m sure of it. The old ghoul was just getting her own back out at the humpback bridge where she bought it herself. I’m glad they’re tearing the fucking thing down, scares the pants off me every time I have to drive over it. Winnie’s nailed old Stu, and me, too, in her witchy way, sticking me with this murderous basket case, maybe the old battle-ax’ll go away now and leave me alone. What’s worse, I have to admit, honey, I miss old Stu. His hillbilly music, his dumb jokes, his sneezing and farting, all of it. And I don’t have anyone to get swacked with now. It’s so boring tying one on alone! At least you’re back, sugar. I’m so glad, I was lost without you! I’ve got so much to — hey, did I tell you? I ran into Colt again. Why didn’t you warn me John was bringing him back here? It was terrible. He didn’t even recognize me. When I told him who I was, the dickhead just stared at me and said, No shit. Really! It was disgust at first sight. I couldn’t blame him. I’m such an ugly old bag now, who’d want to recognize me, even if they did? Looking in a mirror makes me puke. It’s all over, it really is. Oh God, I’m crying and I can’t stop! The good times are gone, sweetie! I’ll never know hard dick again! I’m so scared! How am I going to get through the rest of it?”